


3 times Yosuke definitely wasn’t gay™ and one time he really, really was

by BrookeWritesSometimes



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Confessions, Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Valentine’s Day, Yu is a dork, blood tw for chapter 3, ig??, slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26197483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrookeWritesSometimes/pseuds/BrookeWritesSometimes
Summary: Some fluff of Yosuke denying his romantic feelings for a certain partner before finally being forced to admit them.
Relationships: Hanamura Yosuke/Narukami Yu, Hanamura Yosuke/Persona 4 Protagonist, Hanamura Yosuke/Seta Souji
Comments: 30
Kudos: 255





	1. Movies & Girls

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely going to be my longest fic by far and I’m really nervous about publishing it.
> 
> I was originally just going to post it with one chapter but considering the first part alone is 3,000 words I decided to split it up.
> 
> Chapter 2 is almost 75% done so expect it sometime within the next week!

Yu was… weird, at least to Yosuke.

There was the fact that he’d spend his evenings fishing of all things, his strange obsession with the cats at the Samegawa, and god don’t even get him started on the origami cranes, but that wasn’t the main reason Yosuke thought his partner was strange.

That reason was that.. well, he didn’t care about girls. He thought that Yu would care about that sort of stuff more than the average person because he practically had a mob of girls chasing after him all the time, but that was the complete opposite of how he acted. Yosuke had never heard him say _anything_ that could be interpreted as flirting, aside from that one time he mentioned he liked the shirt that Naoto was wearing. Which was still when they thought she was a guy, so that doesn’t count.

  
  


He’d never really thought about it until now, but the desire to do literally anything other than his trigonometry homework had led to the discovery.

Hell, even the time he joked about him having porn under his futon didn’t make him budge. He winded up checking underneath it later and he’d thought he found something… only for it to be a bag of cat treats. Because of course it was. 

  
  


Any sane person would have just let it go and not mentioned anything, but unfortunately Yosuke was not that. He’d been planning to hang out with Yu today anyway, he’d just made a mental note to ask him about girls at some point during the day.

Yosuke: hey pnr, wanna hand out l8r??

_Partner is typing…_

Yosuke sighed, his eyes scanning over the neglected trig homework. He’d probably have enough time to do it considering Yu’s track record with typing replies to texts, which was what he was going to do, but then he saw that new online shooter game sitting on his desk. He’d have time for one round, right?

———

45 minutes and 15 ‘last game’ s later, Yosuke heard the familiar faint knocking at his door signifying that Yu had arrived. Yosuke laughed a bit at the realization that, yet again, Yu’s knocking was so quiet that it was barely noticeable. Now that he thought about it though, Yu was like that with everything except when he was kicking ass in the TV World. His laughs, his smiles, and even his words sometimes were often quiet or so slight that almost people would hardly notice they were ever there, which was almost cute in a way. It really made him treasure those small smiles and giggl- Wait, cute?? _Nononononononono._ He mentally scolded himself for thinking anything remotely similar to that as his brain did backflips trying to find a straight explanation for that little slip up. _Obviously_ , he was thinking it would be a cute trait in a girl. Which Yu was not, as far as he knew. His daydream about a female Yu (which was definitely _not_ him desperately trying to get his thoughts away from actual Yu, thank you very much) were sadly cut short when he heard another set of quiet knocking on his door. Shit, how long had he been lost in thought.

Yosuke finished walking over to the door and finally opened it to reveal Yu with one of his signature tiny smiles, which made Yosuke give one back in return. 

“Hey partner, glad you could make it! I found this really cool looking movie and I wanted to watch it with you. I think it’s about time travel or something? I don’t know, but it looks interesting,” Yosuke flashed another quick smile before walking over to his DVD player to put the movie in. He prayed for two things: 1) That the DVD player would actually work and not give him beeps of pain when he tried putting in the disc and 2), that the movie wasn’t horrible. He didn’t put much time or thought into the movie choice, it’s not like he had the option considering the low volume of movies in his room that hadn’t been lost in his closet, but he decided on the one with the most female leads so he could try and get a feeling for Yu’s type. Or an admission that he liked girls at all, which was kind of a scary thing now that he thought about it. He hadn’t shown interest in girls _ever,_ so what if he was-

Nope, not going there.

Of course that wasn’t the only reason Yosuke wanted to hang out with Yu today. Not only did he need yet another excuse to procrastinate further on that homework, he also was just.. missing him. Which was weird considering it had only been a few days since they’d last hung out together, but Yosuke couldn’t help it. Yu was his partner after all, and partners were supposed to always be with each other.. or something like that. Whatever thoughts he had were cut off by the DVD player making an all too familiar screeching sound before a few logos started to appear on screen. Well at least technology hadn’t failed him today.

——

20 minutes into the movie and Yosuke already wanted to die. He vaguely remembered bits and pieces of it from some time in middle school, (how it had made the journey from the city to Inaba but his favorite pair of headphones didn’t was still a mystery) and it was just as bad if not worse than it was now. Yu seemed to be enjoying it though, if his slightly brighter than average smile was anything to go by. That wasn’t surprising given that Yu had… _interesting_ tastes when it came to entertainment, but the happiness of his partner could only get him so far.

“She’s hot,” he sputtered out, almost subconsciously. She wasn’t at all, at least in Yosuke’s opinion, but he was so desperate to talk about _something_ or to get his ‘plan’ into action that he didn’t really care.

“Hm, I guess,” Yu gave a small frown and nothing more as he adjusted his focus back onto the movie.

“I guess? That’s it?”

“I mean I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other but she seems like a nice person.”

Yosuke bit his lip to avoid pressing further and accidentally revealing the fact that half the reason he’d decided to hang out with Yu today was to interrogate him on his type. He didn’t worry too much yet though, as there were still plenty of female actors he could comment about.

“Okay, but what about her?” Yosuke said as he pointed towards another one of the female leads. This time he actually thought she was attractive, at least more so than the first girl.

“I like her kitten,” mumbled Yu with a flash of happiness in his eyes before once again focusing on the movie. Was Yosuke hearing him right? Did he really just hear that out of _Yu Narukami??_

“Woah there partner, I didn’t take you for the perverted type! I mean I g-”

“Huh? I was talking about her kitten. Like, her pet from the beginning. You need to get your mind out of the gutter, Yosuke.” Yu then let out one of his signature tiny laughs that Yosuke couldn’t help but smile at. It wasn’t a small smile either, he felt his entire face light up as Yu quietly giggled at his misunderstanding. “I mean I don’t think anyone has ever referred to it as a k-”

“Oh shut up!” 

They were full on laughing now, which was a relief to Yosuke. At least he was laughing about it and not calling him out on his obviously perverted way of thinking. Despite how much he would have loved to just sit there listening to Yu giggling like this for the rest of time, he still needed to get him to actually comment on one of the girls.

“C’mon, you know what I meant though. Like, isn’t she hot?” Yosuke stared over at his partner with a smirk, yet Yu’s expression didn’t change.

“I guess.”

“That again? You can be honest with me, you know. It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.”

“I am being honest, I don’t like either of them. Though if I had to pick I’d choose the second girl because her cat is cute.” 

Yosuke sighed. He wasn’t going to get anywhere at this rate, not with Yu having no actual opinions on the girls themselves. He sat in silence for a few more minutes (which felt like hours because of the god awful movie) and contemplated what to do next. Yu had to have a type, right? Even though he could do that weird thing with his Personas and was just a strange person in general, he had to have a type of woman because, well, everyone did. And the fact that he didn’t know it after they’d been friends for months on end was a bit disheartening, so Yosuke decided to keep on pushing.

“What about that one?” Yosuke gestured to the villain (?) of the story. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to remember her role in the plot, but judging by her outfit he assumed her to be the antagonist.

“She’s mean to the one with the cat. I don’t like her.”

“Okay but is she hot?”

“I gue-” Yosuke cut Yu off, knowing what he was going to say.

“Dude, do you find anyone attractive?” Yosuke laughed, and thankfully Yu did too. He’d been worried that he had accidentally overstepped some sort of boundary and was incredibly glad that he didn’t.

“Well, there's someo- I mean, a few people,” Yu’s voice faltered slightly, but Yosuke didn’t pay it any mind. He was a million times more focused on his answer. Only a few people? How was that even possible?? Oh well, leave it to Yu to be the weirdest person he knew yet again.

“Okay, I guess you aren’t a robot then. But only a few people? You’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not. Personality matters more to me than anything so that’s why I don’t find that many people physically attractive,” Yu explained without looking away from the movie. Yosuke wished he did, mostly so he could read his expression and determine whether to stop talking and continue watching the awful movie or not, but it’s not like he was going to turn Yu’s face around and check. Although he did have plenty to dwell on while he was considering what to say next. Yosuke wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but personality? That wasn’t even close to what he’d had in mind. He was pretty sure that everyone had said that at one point so they wouldn’t be grilled for mentioning their physical preferences, but not for a second did Yosuke believe that Yu was lying. As weird as he was, Yu wasn’t the type of person to lie about insignificant things like that. 

“Oh, that makes sense. Soooo are any of them on the Investigation Team?” Yosuke questioned, leaning ever so slightly closer to his partner. Yosuke felt like it was a dumb question to ask, he had to have a crush on _someone_ on the team. How could he not?

Yu paused for a moment, looking incredibly nervous and conflicted for a split second before returning to his normal, unfazed facial expression. “...No. No they aren’t.”

“What? No way. Not even Rise? Or Yukiko? Or even Chie?”

“Nope,” Yu mumbled yet again with another flash of confliction in his eyes. Yosuke noticed that he wasn’t even paying attention to the movie anymore, mostly because the cat had just been injured and he didn’t comment on it.

“Okay well.. What if you had to pick? You have to have at least some sort of preference, right?” 

“Yosuke, I don’t- Wait, any member of the Investigation Team, right?” Yu said in a strangely excited tone of voice. Yosuke tilted his head slightly in response but didn’t question it; if he questioned every little thing his partner did then he’d never have the opportunity to talk about anything else.

“Mhm. It’s Naoto isn’t it? It has to be, I’ve seen the way you look at her while we’re in the TV World.”

“Yosuke you’ve said that about literally every other girl on the team,” Yu said with another nearly slight laugh.

“Shut up!”

“Anyways, it definitely would have to be y-”

“-ukiko?” Yosuke cut him off unintentionally. He should’ve expected that to be honest, I mean they both had weird laughs and she was really cu-

“You, Yosuke.”

And then Yosuke’s brain short circuited. It took him a while to process the weight of what he’d just heard. Yu Narukami, the guy that had rejected _Ai Ebihara_ of all people, would rather go out with him than Rise. Or Yukiko. Or Naoto. Or Chie. Or hell even Kanji! Wait no, him being ranked above Kanji made sense. But the rest of it sure as hell didn’t! He looked over to Yu in desperation, praying to every god he could possibly think of that he’d find a smirk and hear something along the lines of ‘Ha just kidding no homo I’m not gay I like women and you’re not gay either trust me I can tell also I’ve been fucking Rise for 4 months lmao,’ but his face was deadpan as ever and what he actually heard was even worse.

“I mean you’re really nice, funny, and don’t tell anyone I said this but you’re probably the best at fighting the shadows in the TV World. Oh and your hair is.. cute… Nevermind, I’ll just stop there.” Holy shit he was going to have a heart attack. Yu had to be fucking with him at this point, but that did _not_ explain why Yosuke was blushing like a school girl and could hear his heartbeat in his ears just from those words. He made a vague, heterosexual excuse for it in his mind before scooting to the other end of the couch subconsciously.

“H-hey, that’s not funny! And I’m not a girl!”

“You said anyone on the Investigation Team, Yosuke. Plus you’re the one who forced me to choose, so you can’t get mad at me for my answer.” Yosuke caught the slightest hint of a smirk on Yu’s face, which Yosuke was more thankful for than he could put into words. Smirking meant he was joking, and the fact that he was joking meant that he didn’t have to confront the fluttery feelings in his stomach.

“Yeah I guess I did technically say that, but still! You called my hair cute, that’s weird! Not to mention that I’m, you know, a GUY! You’re messing with me, right?” Yosuke said in a voice a bit too loud and accusing for the situation and hand. Realizing that, he followed it up with a quieter and more calm sounding, “Sorry about that. But you can’t make jokes about that out of nowhere! You caught me off guard!”

Yu froze for a split second, looking like he couldn’t decide what to do, before bursting out into a fit of laughter. “I- I’m sorry.. but your face! It’s just-” he managed between giggles. Yosuke quickly joined in, and it didn’t take long for him to completely forget why he was even nervous. 

Until..

“Just so you know, I wasn’t completely joking. If I had to choose a member of the team to go out with it would definitely be you, but try not to have another one of your gay freakouts about it, okay?”

Oh right, that was why. And he wasn’t joking either. Shit. The blush that had only just started to fade crept its way right back up to his cheeks, a bit of it showing up at the tips of his ears. “S-shut up! They aren’t ‘gay freakouts!’”

“Really? Because if I remember correctly when we went to save Kanji yo-”

“SHUT UP!”

———

The rest of the movie was mostly watched in awkward silence, with the occasional comment from Yu or Yosuke on how nonsensical some of the plot points were. It wasn’t that Yosuke didn’t want to talk to Yu, but god could he not get their recent conversations out of his mind. His partner would rather date _him_ than any of the girls on the team? Or even Kanji or Teddie? That was definitely weird no matter how he thought about it, and Yosuke couldn’t quite brush it off as just a weird Narukami thing because it was just too odd. Maybe he just thought the girls were like, really really ugly or something. Yeah, that had to be it.

Finally, the god forsaken movie ended and the credits began to roll. Yu stood up almost immediately after he noticed that, mumbling some excuse about how he needed to do something with Nanako before waving goodbye and abruptly left, which of course left Yosuke alone with his thoughts. His mind bounced back and forth between a couple of different possibilities, ranging from Yu actually being gay to this was all somehow something set up by Kanji, before he remembered something. It’s not like Yu said he _wanted_ to date him, it’s just that he would if he were forced to choose between a couple of options. And with that half hearted explanation, Yosuke pushed the memory to the very back of his mind and prayed it would never resurface.


	2. Denial & Hair Petting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke breaks Yu’s sofa and they end up sharing a futon because clichè.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aah it’s done!! I had to do some heavy editing to this chapter, and it’s not my favorite tbh. Oh well, I hope it’s at least decent.

Unfortunately, it did.

And it was all that stupid couch’s fault.

Everything went perfectly fine, at least for a little bit. He got to listen to Nanako ramble for a while about how much she loves Junes and therefore loves Yosuke, scavenged through the fridge with Yu and somehow managed to make something edible with the contents, and even watched a movie that wasn’t horrifically awful this time. For once in Yosuke’s life, everything was going fine.

But then the universe remembered that nothing good can ever happen to Yosuke Hanamura.

_CREAK_

“Huh? What was-“

_SNAP_

“AAH!” Yosuke yelled, which promptly ended the discussion they had been having on random school stuff. He blinked a few times before finally realizing what had happened; he’d broken Yu’s couch.

“Yosuke what happ- OH,” Yu started, letting out a snort before continuing, “Sorry about that, it’s been making weird noises for a while now but I’d always been too lazy to fix it. I guess I forgot to tell you that, oops.”

“Why are you the one apologizing? I’m the one that busted your couch. Do you want me to like.. try and fix it or something? No guarantee it’s actually going to work, though.”

“I appreciate the offer, but it’s really not a big deal. I don’t really use it and Uncle really likes me for whatever reason so I’m sure he won’t mind.” Yu seemed calm, a bit too calm considering the situation, Yosuke noted, but as long as Yu and his uncle didn’t mind he didn’t either. Yosuke stood up, brushing some dust off of his pants and moving a handful of futon parts out of the way so he didn’t step on them as he did so. Which he ended up doing anyway, because of course he did. He (somehow) managed to stumble over to Yu’s bed without embarrassing himself further, and the resumed their conversation on how awful some of their teachers were.

That was until Yosuke noticed the time.

“Shit, it’s 2am already? I thought it was still like 8,” Yosuke mumbled with surprise. Now that he thought about it he was pretty tired, and the alarm clock flashing the time at him only seemed to amplify the feeling.

“Oh god, really? Me too, I guess I didn’t notice the time with everything we did,” Yu turned his head to face Yosuke, then continued, “I guess we should probably go to sleep then, I don’t want your sleeping schedule getting messed up and you falling asleep in the middle of class again.” 

“Oh shut up, that was only for like 10 minutes. You’re probably right though, I’m already behind in my classes enough as is,” Yosuke flashed a quick smile as he stood up to go and lay down on the couch. “Well, goodni.. oh yeah, right. _That,”_ Yosuke trailed off as he remembered that he’d broken said couch less than 20 minutes ago. He let out a faint, self deprecating chuckle at his own stupidity before sighing. The floor couldn’t be that uncomfortable, right? And if it was he could find a way to lay on that stupid thing- wait no, there was a huge metal piece sticking out in the middle and he did _not_ want to sleep with something of Yu’s that was huge and metal up his ass. So the floor it was. Thankfully there were enough blankets laying on the remains of the couch to provide what would hopefully be a comfortable experience, which Yosuke was incredibly greatful or. On the other side of things though, there weren’t any pillows outside of the one on Yu’s bed and it would be rude to ask for that one, so he decided not to use one. That wasn’t the worst thing in the world, much better than having the aforementioned metal stuck up his ass. He placed down the handful of blankets and went to go lay down before he heard a voice from the other side of the room.

“Yosuke… what are you doing?” Yu asked in a confused and slightly disappointed tone.

“I’m going to sleep..?” Yosuke replied with equal amounts of confusion.

“On the floor?”

“Yeah, where else am I going to sleep? I broke your couch and Dojima fell asleep on the one downstairs.”

“You could sleep on my futon.” Great, now Yosuke was even more confused. Was Yu offering himself to go and sleep on the floor?

“Uh.. then where would you sleep?”

“Also.. on the futon.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Surely he was joking, right? Though the last time Yosuke thought he was joking about something suspiciously gay it turned out that he wasn’t. But this had to be a joke, right?

“Haha, very funny. But I really don’t mind sleeping on the floor, I mean it’s my fault your couch broke and everything,” Yosuke replied after a few seconds of contemplating what to say. God, Yu really was weird. Oh well, now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. He set the couple blankets down on the floor and bundled himself up underneath them. It wasn’t awful, just a tad uncomfortable, but he could survive.

“I wasn’t kidding, but I guess it doesn’t matter as long as you’re fine with sleeping there. By the way, there’s a spider on your left.” Wait, he wasn’t joking? Was he not aware of how overwhelmingly gay two guys sharing a bed was? Not to mention just how small the darn thing looked, there’s no way they’d both fit on it comfortably. He was perfectly fine with sleeping on the flo- wait, did he say spider? Yosuke shivered at the mere thought, then let out a high pitched squeak when he saw the actual thing. It wasn’t extremely big and didn’t look all that dangerous, but it was still _right next to him_ and staring at him with those beady little eyes and walking towards him with it’s scarily long legs. He impulsively threw the nearest thing at it, which happened to be some sort of notebook, and bolted towards the other side of the room. 

Once his heartbeat started to slow down to a semi- normal pace, Yosuke’s first thought was of just how embarrassing that was. He turned his head over to Yu, who was laughing his ass off because of course he was. He’d almost always treasured that laughter, especially when it was loud like this, but this was definitely not one of those times. He sighed, turning his head back around only to realize that _it was still fucking alive._ He let out a whimper, a _whimper_ , as he threw himself onto Yu’s futon in fear. The laughing only got louder because of that, but Yosuke didn’t care. All he cared about in that moment was the terrifying spider crawling around only a few feet away from him. Yosuke took deep breaths and was so focused on calming himself down from that whole ordeal that he didn’t even notice that the laughing had stopped and that his body felt significantly warmer.

“I’m really sorry about that, I shouldn’t have laughed. I grabbed you the blankets you left on the floor so you’d be comfortable, there’s no spiders on them I promise,” Yu flashed him a quick, consoling smile as he laid back down in bed next to him. God this was so embarrassing. The fact that he’d broken Yu’s couch, screamed over a spider of all things, and was currently laying in bed bundled up with another guy, all of it was so overwhelming that he wanted to curl up into a ball and die. Oh well, at least this was his partner and not some random guy. Or Kanji. Yeah, that would be worse.

“ _You’re_ sorry? I’m the one who broke your couch and then had a breakdown over a bug. Thanks for the blankets though, you’re the best,” Yosuke sighed, burying his head in the very blankets Yu had just brought him. It was far more comforting then it should have been; not only were they made of a really soft material that he couldn’t quite place his finger on, but they also smelled like his partner. Yu’s _smell_ had absolutely no right to be so calming to him, but the faint scent of strawberry shampoo alone was enough to make Yosuke’s breathing finally slow down to a normal pace. 

Eventually he peeked his head out of the bundle of blankets, only to find Yu halfway across the room and throwing one of his textbooks at the ground. Yosuke immediately assumed that it was to crush the spider, which he was incredibly thankful for. Yu looked over at him with a warm smile that unfortunately faded away as he flicked off the lights. 

“It should be dead now, at least I think. I really doubt it could survive being crushed by an 800 page textbook, though.” God, he was so nice. So caring, so thoughtful, so apologetic. He even apologized for laughing, which Yosuke, though he definitely didn’t want to admit it, sure as hell wouldn’t have done in that situation. 

“Oh thank you, you really didn’t have to do that. I shouldn’t have even been that scared, I mean it’s just a bug. That’s something a girl would be afraid of.” Yu sighed immediately after he finished talking, clearly wanting to say something but deciding against it for whatever reason.

“It’s not a- Ahem.. It’s fine, I really don’t mind. Anyways, goodnight. Have you decided where you’re going to sleep yet?” Oh, right. He hadn’t really thought about it, but he still didn’t know where to sleep. The couch was a no-go for obvious reasons, but he still hadn’t decided on the futon or the floor. On one hand, sharing a futon with Yu was like.. really, really gay. But on the other hand a terrifying, long legged, beady eyed spider that may or may not still be alive and that may or may not have other spiders coming to avenge it’s death was still on the floor.

Maybe he could tolerate a little bit of gay.

  
  


“G’night partner. I think I’m going to sleep up here, if that’s alright. It’s _not_ because of the spider though. It’s just, uh, more comfortable up here. Also no homo or anything.”

“17.”

“Huh?” Yosuke questioned. Maybe the sleep deprivation was finally getting to him.

“You’ve said no homo to me a total of 17 times. But yeah, I really don’t mind,” Yu mumbled back.

“There’s no way I’ve said it that many times, you’re overexaggerating,” he said back with a pout, though Yu probably couldn’t see it with the darkness.

“Oh trust me, you have. There was that one time when you said you liked my shirt, that one time you said that Chie would be objectively more attractive as a dude, 5 times while we were in Kanji’s bathhous-”

“Okay! I get it! It’s better than being like you, you say and do gay shit all the time and I don’t think you’ve even said it once. Plus there was that time you said you’d date me over any of the girls on the team, that’s pretty damn gay not gonna lie.” Yosuke decided to stop there, worrying he was going to get into a tangent and end up embarrassing himself yet again. 

“Yeah, and? It’s not like there’s anything wrong with it. If anything denying it repeatedly is more suspicious than not saying anything at all. I mean.. partner is another term for lover, you know.” Yosuke physically recoiled at the implications of what Yu was saying and immediately shut his eyes. God, why was he like this? Not just Yu, but himself. It was clearly just guy banter. Bros being bros, dudes being dudes, partners being partners. So why the hell was his face flushed after hearing it??

“Shut up, I hate you, goodnight,” he flusteredly replied with a single breath. It’s better to just ignore him then get even more worked up than he already was. He assumed Yu decided to give him the slightest bit of mercy when he didn’t hear anything else come out of his mouth, and he sighed in relief. Now all he had to do was actually go to sleep, and he could just forget all of this had happened.

Which was easier said than done.

It didn’t take long at all to notice that the futon was definitely meant for one person. It didn’t come to Yosuke’s attention immediately after he layed down due to the spider and all of Yu’s gay talk, but now that all of his attention was solely on falling asleep it was hard not to think about. There was enough room for the both of them, sure, but he was only about an inch or two away from Yu. That would have been bad already, but it was made about a million times worse by what Yu had just said. _Yu_ was accusing _him_ of being the gay one? Yu _‘I’d date you than any of the other Investigation Team members_ _no homo though’_ Narukami?? That was BS, and he was going to prove it. And since apparently acknowledging how overwhelmingly gay something is was considered ‘suspicious,’ he was going to prove it by not being phased by sleeping on the same futon as Yu was. Yeah, that would work. It’s not like he had many options other than that either, with the aforementioned spider, but now he had even more reason to just tough it out and go through with it. It wouldn’t be too hard, all he had to do was fall asleep and ignore Yu next to him. He’d fallen asleep in tons of uncomfortable situations before, so this wouldn’t be any different, right? 

Right..?

The second and third things he noticed after the size of the futon were that a) Yu’s hair was surprisingly soft and b) _his hand was in Yu’s hair._ His immediate reaction was to jolt his hand away like Yu’s hair was some sort of poison ivy, but the tiny amount of self control he had left made him stop. The entire reason he was even sharing a bed with Yu in the first place was to prove that he was 100%, completely, absolutely, _fine_ with things that seemed a little gay, so panicking about his hand being in Yu’s hair was contradictory. And so, with a slightly nervous intake of breath, he decided to keep it there. He glanced over at his partner with hesitation, but Yu didn’t seem to have much of a reaction. He didn't seem to have a negative reaction, at least. Yosuke couldn’t tell if Yu had been smiling before he’d accidentally moved his hand into his hair or if it was a recent thing, but he decided not to think about it too much. If he was being honest, he was a bit afraid of the answer to that question. He felt around a bit more after that, almost subconsciously, before he froze. Not only had Yu leaned into his touch, which would have been bad enough already, but it appeared he was blushing as well, if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Immediately after noticing this, Yosuke pulled his hand away with a slight, unintentional yell, like this time Yu’s hair actually _was_ some sort of poison ivy. He’d expected some sort of laughter or snarky comment, but what he actually got was about a million times worse than what he anticipated.

  
  
  
  
  


“Why’d you stop?” He whispered with a disappointed frown.

“W-why’d I stop?? Because we’re both guys and that’s fucking _weird!_ Why were you getting all blushy and leaning into me like I’m some chick?” Yosuke wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. He’d always known Yu was a little odd, but him actually liking whatever the hell that was? That was pretty freaking weird even for his standards.

“You’re getting defensive again, all I asked is why you stopped.”

“I’m not being ‘defensive,’ you just keep suggesting things that aren’t true and I’m trying to defend.. my...self…..” Yosuke trailed off, realizing that he’d literally described the definition of being defensive whilst arguing that he wasn’t defensive. Yu laughed yet again, quiet as ever, which Yosuke was thankful for. At least he wasn’t taking this too seriously. It was safe, heterosexual guy banter.

“Despite that being the literal textbook definition of being defensive, what was I accusing you of? I just asked why you stopped playing with my hair.”

“What were you accusing me of? Don’t play dumb, you know exactly what you were implying and it’s not true. Now I’m going to sleep before I mess up my sleeping schedule again.” Yu stayed silent for a little while after that, making Yosuke believe that he was finally given some sort of mercy. But of course, he hadn’t.

“I never asked you if you were gay, which I already know the anwser too because you talk about it far more than a normal straight person should by the way, I asked why you stopped playing with my hair. It felt nice.”

“I-” Yosuke didn’t exactly know what to say. It felt nice for him too; the scent of strawberry shampoo, how overwhelmingly soft it was, the dorky little smile stretched across Yu’s face, everything about those 10 seconds felt amazing. So that begs the question, why _did_ he stop? 

“B-because it’s.. not something two guys are supposed to do, okay? We’re already sharing a futon and that’s way more than I ever want to do with another guy. Now goodnight,” Yosuke sounded unsure of himself, almost afraid in a way, but he didn’t bother thinking about why. He assumed Yu had noticed this, seeing as he looked like he desperately wanted to say something to argue back, but all that came out of his mouth was a simple, “Goodnight,”

With a deep breath, Yosuke relaxed his muscles and tried to forget what just happened. He could still do this, he could still prove that he wasn’t suspicious and he most certainly wasn’t gay or in denial or whatever else Yu had implied. All he had to do was not acknowledge Yu’s existence, which shouldn’t be too hard to do once he fell asleep. 

Around 20 or so minutes later, Yosuke assumed that Yu had done just that. He could only assume because he’d seemingly gone still, but there was also a chance Yu was just fucking with him and waiting for him to do something embarrassing again. He decided to choose the less terrifying option in assuming he was asleep. His theory that it would be easy to fall asleep with no threat of Yu making fun of him proved to be true, at least for a little while. It also helped that the futon was surprisingly comfortable, which was especially confusing considering just how old the thing looked. Yosuke let out a quiet, faint yawn, feeling his consciousness drift away rapidly, before he heard the sound of fabric shuffling and a sudden weight appeared on his chest. Alarmed, his eyes shot open and…

Yu had rolled over onto his chest.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_

Yu had to be messing with him. He was awake, internally laughing, and going to go back to his normal position in a few seconds. That absolutely had to be the case, because Yosuke had no idea what he would do if it wasn’t. “Parterrrrr, get off..” he whined.

No response.

“Yu I swear to god-”

Silence.

“I’m being serious, please move.”

That got a reply and- wait no, that was just Yu shifting himself into a more comfortable position on his chest. 

Dammit.

Yosuke sighed, dramatically and loudly to hopefully ‘accidentally’ awaken his partner, but it didn’t do anything. Oh well, at least he could tell that Yu was actually asleep this time. As teasing as he could be, Yu would never keep a joke going after he’d already expressed his discomfort. He knew that from experience after a few times, one of which being what had just happened with the whole hair petting thing.

This was so gay. The hair thing and futon sharing was already on a level of gay a bit too high for Yosuke’s preference, but this was like.. _really_ gay. Yu was laying on his chest like a pillow. Guys aren’t supposed to do that to other guys! Think of the implications of two guys basically cuddling each other while sharing a bed! If someone didn’t know any better they might think that they’d... **_Nope._ ** _Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope not going there._

‘This is fine. This isn’t normal but walking into the TV and beating the shit out of a literal murderer sure as hell wasn't either. This is an accident, something we’re going to laugh about in the morning and then forget about,’ repeated in Yosuke’s head like a mantra for god knows how long until he finally started to believe it. Yeah, this was going to be fine. It’s not like he actually had feelings for Yu or something, not only because he wasn’t gay, but because it was _Yu_ . Not that Yosuke thought Yu was unattractive or had a bad personality, (quite the opposite, he’d thought about doing.. _things_ with a female version of Yu a bit too many times to be considered normal) but Yu was special. His best friend, the person who’d helped him avenge Saki, and most importantly his partner. He couldn’t do gay stuff with him because it would ruin that bond.. or something. It had made more sense when it was only a few vague thoughts in passing, but now that he was actually thinking about it? Not so much. Since Yu was special to him wouldn't that make a potential relationship even better because they understood each other so well? And- ugh, that wasn’t the point! He wasn’t gay and he most certainly wasn’t gay for Yu. And most importantly, he wanted this to end as soon as humanly possible. He looked down, praying to every god that he could think of that Yu had at least moved a bit while he was arguing with himself, but he hadn’t because nothing good could ever happen to Yosuke Hanamura.

Seconds felt like hours as Yosuke just laid motionless on the futon. The weight of Yu’s head on his chest was beginning to slightly grow uncomfortable, but it’s not like he could do anything about it. The idea of waking him up, even though he’d probably understand and be completely fine with it, felt wrong for whatever reason. Eventually the boredom of just laying there overtook him and he raised a hand back up to Yu’s hair, but on purpose this time. He couldn’t explain to himself why and didn’t really try to, knowing he wouldn’t get anywhere, but ruffling his hair like this was oddly comforting. It might have just been that it was soft, but somehow he doubted that. That wasn’t the point though, the point was that this felt nice and oddly domestic in a way. He then made a mental note to do this with his future girlfriend that was definitely going to actually exist, thank you very much. Yu seemed to be smiling at the touch again, leaning into it ever so slightly. At that moment Yosuke took back every comment he’d ever made about his partner’s strange obsession with cats; he could definitely see the appeal in them now. Though not completely, seeing as cats weren’t typically human sized and didn’t tend to smell like strawberries. He pet the human cat laying on his chest a bit more, relishing in the soft feeling of Yu’s hair against his fingers. It was.. nice, far nicer than it had any right to be considering Yu had started to blush again and was smiling like an absolute idiot. Even despite that he still looked oddly peaceful in a way, and Yosuke wouldn't trade the sight for the world. He really regretted not continuing to do this while Yu was still awake, especially because of how he mentioned it felt nice for him too. The idea of Yu actually being awake and giving him comments on how relaxing it was to have his hair played with was a bit too fantastic of a thought to remain to himself, Yosuke decided.

Unfortunately, as he had already established a multitude of times, nothing good could ever happen to Yosuke Hanamura. Mere seconds after he’d realized how amazing this all felt, Yu rolled back over onto the other side of the bed. 

Yosuke sighed yet again, not in relief like he’d anticipated, but in disappointment. Now there was a huge spot on his chest that felt.. empty. Empty, cold, and partner-less. Maybe this was for the best, at least now there wasn’t a chance that Yu could wake up and spout out more of that denial crap or laugh at him for ruffling through his hair like a girl would. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, that _was_ something a girl would do, or at least a guy to his girlfriend. _Not_ a guy to another guy, that was just weird. It’s not like that mattered anymore though, he’d already done it and it was basically impossible for Yu to find out. Now all he had to do was fall asleep without indefinitely arguing with himself over why he liked running his fingers through his partner’s hair.

It was, surprisingly, pretty easy. Part of that was due to the fact he was actually starting to get somewhat tired again, and the other part was him realizing that he’d stayed up so long that the sun was starting to peek through the blinds. RIP his future sleeping schedule.

And so, after around 20 minutes of laying still and soaking in whatever the hell had just happened, Yosuke finally drifted to sleep with a certain someone’s strawberry scented hair on his mind. 

  
  



	3. Nursing & Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yu gets hurt and Yosuke takes care of him, all the while accepting who he truly is in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHAAHSHDJJFDD ITS DONE OMG OMG POG
> 
> This chapter is kinda pushing it bc yosk isn’t as in denial anymore but eh I do what I want 
> 
> Also huge thanks to Chiri from the Souyo discord for the chapter idea, my original one was super bad ahhshsjsjsjdjsnd
> 
> Also also this one is less fluffy than the other two so sorry ab that the next one will be the fluffiest by far so don’t worry

If you’d asked Yosuke a few months ago how he was going to spend his upcoming afternoons, screaming at a fox would be at the very bottom of the list.

But here he was.

“Wha- DO SOMETHING YOU STUPID LITTLE SHIT!” He yelled, chucking the nearest thing (which happened to be a small rock) at it. That only made it’s apparent moodiness even worse, it’s only response being to growl and run further away from him.

“Yosuke, it’s fine. Just.. leave it alone. It’s my fault for not bringing enough money anyways..” Yu mumbled back, broken and exhausted sounding. Yosuke unintentionally held him closer as he heard, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened. He should have hit that attack because the enemy was weak to wind and was barely still alive, but he didn’t. He didn’t because distracted, and then Yu got punished for it. He could still feel the after affects of both things he’d gotten hit with; His body temperature being way lower than any human’s should be as a result of the string of ice attacks he’d gotten hit with, and worst of all, the scratches and cuts all over his body that were spilling out blood at an alarming rate. And of course,  _ of course  _ this was the  _ one _ time they had gone in without Yukiko, their primary healer. And Yosuke himself didn’t have enough energy left to heal anything to be worthwhile because he’d been too carefree with using his Persona and exhausted himself in the process. And now they had to wait until tomorrow to go back into the TV and actually fix the wounds, so Yosuke had to take care of him until then.

“L-leave it alone!? But if it stops being so stubborn and gives me more energy than I can heal you! Then you won’t be so-”

“ _ Just go,  _ Yosuke _. _ I’m sure the others are finished shopping by now anyways.. I’ll be okay, I promise.” the boy in his arms smiled weakly in response, which was quickly interrupted by a fit of coughing. Yosuke’s eyes darted away as soon as it started; he really didn’t want to think about all the pain his partner must have been in. 

“Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. Try not to look too dead once we get into Junes, I don’t want to have to go to the police station for the second time this year,” Yosuke said a bit nervously, hoping Yu was in a decent enough mood to take a joke. Luckily he was, judging by the smile and snort he let out. Yosuke wasted no time walking over to Teddie and saying that they were ready to go back to the real world and meet up with the others, which took some time because of how distraught he was over his dear Sensei.

“S-Sensei! You're beary injured! Are you really going to be safe with Yosuke? He has been practicing how to take care of people with those medical magazines under his bed, b-but-” Teddie was unceremoniously cut off by a fit of laughter by a certain someone, which quickly devolved into an awful coughing fit.

“H-Hey!! I don’t ha- okay maybe I do but that’s not- SHUT UP WE’RE LEAVING!” He yelled, panicked and his face flushed ever so slightly. Yu’s laughter only got louder at his words, which caused yet another fit of hacking and coughing.

“Awww, you’re not going to be my private nurse, Yosuke?” His partner whined with (hopefully) fake disappointment and a very desperate attempt to not burst out into laughter again. Unfortunately that didn’t exactly work and he started essentially howling for the third time.

“Wha-  _ NO!?  _ God I hate you sometimes, partner. And stop laughing! You’re going to like, throw up blood on me or something!” Yu obliged his request with a slight frown, and Yosuke looked back up to the incredibly confused Teddie.

“I’ll, uh, explain what he meant later.. now let’s get out of here before everyone leaves without us.” For once in his life Teddie decided to shut up, and they finally got back to Junes. Yosuke’s eyes darted around at lightning speeds to make sure that nobody would see him with what would have appeared to be a dead body to any onlookers, and let out a sigh of relief when the only other person within eyeshot was Naoto. 

“Rise, Kanji, and Chie are outside, they finished buying things a little while ago. How are you feeling? ” She gestured towards Yu, who only groaned in response at first.

“I’m… fine..”

“No, you aren’t. Now stop looking dead for a minute so I don’t get arrested.” Yu only grunted in response again, and Yosuke ran out of Junes as fast as he possibly could. Thankfully today seemed to be a slow business day, and the only person who noticed him outside of Naoto was some old man who didn’t seem to care. His eyes scrambled for the rest of the Investigation Team, causing him to panic for a split second before spotting Rise a little ways away from the front entrance. He didn’t waste any time running over there, though he tried to slow his pace a bit so he didn’t hurt Yu more than he already had.

“Finally! I thought you guys were never gonna come out of there!” Scolded a particularly impatient Chie.

“Yeah yeah, just give me the bag so I don’t have to explain to everyone passing by why I’m holding a guy bleeding everywhere bridal style.” Yosuke reached forward to grab the Junes bag she was holding, only for her to pull back.

“No, that one’s mine. Rise has the one with the medicine and stuff.” Yosuke didn’t really see a problem with that at first, until he realized something.

“Wait, you forgot your wallet at home, right? I had to give you mine so you could buy the supplies, so were you using  _ my _ money to buy  _ your _ stuff?”

“Uh, maybe..? I’ll pay you back eventually,” she mumbled as she handed over the aforementioned wallet.

“No, you won’t. This has happened before.” Chie didn’t exactly disagree and Yosuke decided not to press further. There was a much bigger issue he needed to deal with, after all.

“Here you go, I think we covered everything you might need. Take good care of Senpai, alright?” Rise said with a smile as she handed over the plastic bag.

“Don’t worry, I will. Er.. hopefully, anyways.”

“That’s reassuring,” mumbled Yu so quietly that Yosuke barely heard.

“Oh shut up! If you have enough energy to be snarky then you have enough energy to not die on me.” Yu responded without yet another laugh that quickly became a fit of coughing and wheezing. From there Yosuke simply waved to the rest of the group, not wanting to waste too much time with goodbyes in order to get Yu healed up as quickly as possible. He had already waited a bit too long judging by the tiny amount of blood starting to seep through his shirt, and he would never be able to forgive himself if it got any worse. 

He continued speed walking towards the Dojima residence for a bit, frantically dodging the stares of faceless strangers and even more frantically dodging the stares from his classmates before, finally, he arrived at the familiar doorstep. 

“We’re here, you have your key, right?” He asked.

No response.

“Yuuuuu gimme your keyyy!”

No response.

It was at that very moment that Yosuke had a heart attack because  _ holy shit what if he’s fucking dead  _ before realizing that Yu was still breathing and moving and he could still feel his heart beating up against his chest.

Oh right, Sleeping was a thing. He assumed Yu had heard how frantic his breath had gotten in that moment, which had caused him to stir a bit and eventually open his eyes. “Mmm… hm? Oh, we’re here?”

“Yeah, could you hand me your key?” He looked down as he tried to calm his breathing. Seeing Yu helped a lot with that, smiling and looking genuinely happy all whilst being freezing cold and bleeding out of a billion different cuts. He almost felt guilty for being able to see him like this considering Rise, or the girl from the band, or Ai, or Yukiko, or that one girl from drama- holy hell did a lot of girls have a crush on Yu- probably would have killed to see this. It was weirdly satisfying in a way; maybe he’d go rub it in their faces later. He shook his head and returned to reality as Yu held out his key, which he put into the door and turned with a satisfying click. Yosuke wasted no time walking upstairs and laying Yu down on his futon after the door was open. He would have ran but, knowing himself, he would have ended up dropping him and making everything a million times worse than it already was.

“Uh.. okay, so.. um….” Yosuke found himself mumbling to no one in particular as he tried to remember what order to do things in. The first thing he had to do was get the medicine to fix his body temperate- wait no, that wasn’t as important as some of the other things. Right, the pain kille- nope, he had to do that after he stopped the bleeding. Oh right, the bleeding! Now he just had to figure out how to actually stop it. Yosuke frantically rummaged through everything in the Junes bag, somehow finding everything  _ except _ the rubbing alcohol. Pills? No. Painkillers? No. Bandages? He’d need those soon but no. A bag of frozen chicken wings..?? Why the hell were those even in there??? Oh, Chie must have put something in the wrong bag. Finally, after everything else was in a cluttered pile on Yu’s floor, he found the tiny bottle labeled ‘91% Isopropyl Alcohol.’ Praying that he wasn’t going to completely screw everything up, Yosuke shakily applied some of the liquid to one of the paper towels he’d found among the assorted supplies. 

“Alright, I’m ready. Could you.. um…” It was then that Yosuke realized something. Not only would he have to look at Yu shirtless up close for a prolonged period of time, but also he’d have to put his hands all over his chest for god knows how long. That thought was.. scary to say the least, but it’s not like he had any say in the matter. It was almost entirely his fault that Yu was as injured as he was, so protesting having to patch him up would just be insensitive. It wouldn’t take too long anyways, he just had to avoid eye contact and pretend he was Rise or something. 

“Could I what?”

“Um.. you know…” for whatever reason the idea of asking Yu to take off his shirt out loud seemed a billion times worse than just implying it. Thankfully, his partner understood what he had meant and tossed his torn and semi-blood soaked t-shirt off somewhere a little while away from the pile of medical junk on the floor. Yosuke’s eyes subconsciously shut themselves immediately as Yu started to strip himself. It was going to be bad already, but having to watch as his best friend stripped off his clothes? That would have been so, so much worse.

He reopened them after a few seconds and more than a few mental pep talks, and..  _ holy shit. _

The mental response that any human being with more than a single brain cell should have had in that moment was ‘Oh that’s not as much blood as I thought there would be. That’s good!,’ which a very small part of Yosuke’s brain was thinking, but the vast majority of it was screaming ‘Oh god oh fuck why the hell does he look that good???’

It was completely objective of course, something something not gay bla bla bla he’d had that discussion with himself a billion times already. But holy hell, this was too much for even his completely heterosexual self not to comment on. Ignoring the somewhat large amount of blood that he really should get around to fixing before ogling at his best friend like some sort of model, his chest was almost picturesque. It looked like something from those hilariously fake workout ads, except it was right here and in front of him and _real._ Shit, now he felt even worse for stealing this opportunity from all of those girls. Yosuke tried not to stare for too long though, half because it was really weird to look at your best friend’s chest for no real reason for a long period of time and half because Yu was, you know, _bleeding_ _everywhere._ Yosuke hadn’t even started his job as a ‘nurse’ but he already felt like he should be fired.

“Um.. this is probably going to hurt. Like, a lot. Sorry about that.” He looked up and grinned, which Yu returned in the form of a weak smile.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll live.. probably.” Yosuke chucked at that, and started to get to work. Upon closer inspection, a majority of the scrapes littered across Yu’s chest appeared to be shallow and not too much of a threat. Only three or so of them looked deep enough to cause any significant amount of bleeding. Yosuke was starting to question whether or not they really should have just gone to the doctor instead, but he tried focusing on the task at hand. Hands shaking ever so slightly, he grabbed the paper dowl doused with rubbing alcohol and slowly started working his way up Yu’s chest. He started with the more shallow cuts first, which he didn’t have any sort of real explanation for other than he didn’t want to hurt his partner. He knew that it would have to happen eventually, but he wanted to delay it as much as possible. That impending fear also somewhat helped negate the odd feelings of warmth he had. Not because of Yu’s way too toned chest, which although he would rather die than admit it was a small percentage of the weird good feelings coursing through him, a majority of it was coming from the domesticity of it all. Which somehow made even  _ less _ sense than the whole chest thing. If Yu was a girl then yeah, taking care of someone’s wounds could be a really cute relationship thing, but he was a guy! And they weren’t in a relationship! So why was he feeling like a schoolgirl who’d just confessed to their crush?? Actually now that he thought about it, this had happened a handful of times before. When Yu had told him that he’d rather date him over any of the Investigation Team girls for whatever reason, when they’d shared a futon together, and a few other instances that started popping up rapidly in Yosuke’s mind. And he still didn’t have an answer to any of those questions, much less the answer to why it was only Yu he had those sorts of outbursts with. Well, except like he occasionally used to with Saki. And Yukiko and Rise every once in a while. And it’s not like that helped, the only similarity between those those 4 was-

Oh no.

_ Oh no. _

Did he…...?

No, he couldn’t. 

Granted he didn’t have an actual reason for it other than ‘I can’t,’ but he didn’t have a ..crush (that felt really weird to even consider) on Yu. It was just impossible and the idea of it alone was making his skin crawl. He tried his very hardest to push the idea to the very back of his mind to hopefully forget about it, but for whatever reason it just wouldn’t leave. He didn’t. He didn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, there’s no way in hell that-

“Ah!” Oh, he must have gotten to one of the deeper wounds. Which of course drew his attention back to the fact that his hands were all over Yu’s chest. Less than two minutes ago he’d convinced himself that this was 110% fine considering all that he was doing was cleaning up some wounds, which was a bit weird but it’s not like he had any right to protest, but now with all of the.. conflicting feelings he was having it made everything a hundred times worse. Coupled with the ..noise Yu had just made that sound sound really bad if you closed your eyes and didn’t know the context,  _ and _ the fact that he was squirming ever so slightly and biting his lip, though? It multiplied it by a million. Yosuke’s breathing was getting heavier and his hands were starting to shake as he attempted to ignore whatever the hell was going on and just finish cleaning up all the cuts. His thoughts weren’t really even coherent anymore, just broken variations of ‘no way’ and endless internal screaming. After what felt like hours of this torture, he finally,  _ finally _ , finished. Or at least he assumed so; there was no way in hell that he was going to ask Yu to lay on his stomach to look for any injuries on his back, he’d just try and feel for them while he was putting the bandages on.

Oh, right.

He still had to put the stupid bandages on.

Goddamnit.

“O-okay, so… um… I’m done cleaning the wounds, I think. Are you feeling alright so far?” God did he hate this. He was never, ever like this around Rise or Yukiko or Saki when she was still alive or literally any of the other trillion girls he’d had crushes on, but around  _ Yu _ of all people he was stuttering like some girl in a slice of life manga? It made no sense. 

“Yeah, I’m feeling fine. Thank you, by the way.”

“Oh, it’s no problem.” Maybe he’d gotten hit with some sort of mind-altering spell while in the TV World and it had persisted after they left? Despite the fact that a) that had literally never happened before, b) something so severe that it was still in effect while in the real world would probably do a hell of a lot more than make the victim feel a little flustered and stutter a bit, and c) this anywhere close to wasn’t the first time he’d felt flustered around his partner, it was just the first time he was fully acknowledging it instead of pretending it wasn’t happening. Okay, so that was out of the question. Yosuke took a sharp inhale of breath and grabbed the bandage wrap from the pile of Junes supplies. He’d already gotten through the difficult part, now all he had to do was wrap up the wounds and give him the medicine. Yet again desperately trying to not look at the amazing sight that was Yu Narukami’s abs, Yosuke started to slowly bandage up the various cuts and scrapes to fully stop the blood pouring out of them. Thankfully there weren’t any additional wounds on his back, which meant less involuntary staring and therefore less painful emotions.

For once in his life, Yosuke was correct about something being easy. Well it wasn’t easy per se, but it wasn’t as horrific and anxiety inducing as cleaning up the wounds was. There weren't any more squirming or questionable noises, no more stuttering like an anime girl (for now at least), and most importantly, no more internal screaming about why the hell he felt all of those weird happy feelings when he saw his partner’s bare chest. He started to relax, realizing that it was ‘just a weird once off thing’ and leaving it at that. Which deep down he knew wasn’t true with all of the other times those exact feelings had shown up towards Yu specifically, but he didn’t really think about that part too much. It was much easier to just ignore the problem because it wasn’t directly affecting him at this very moment, which is what he continued to do up until he was finished wrapping around the bandages. 

“Okay, it’s mostly over with now. Are you feeling any better? Do you want some water or food or anything?” He gave a slight smile as he tried looking as far away from both Yu’s eyes and his now bandaged chest as humanly possible. It didn’t exactly work, but at least the medical wrap covered the parts he was staring at a few minutes prior.

“Everything still hurts, but I think it's less worse than it was earlier. And can I have some ice water if that’s okay?” He nodded in response and started walking down the stairs to fulfill his request. 

Now that he was alone with his thoughts and no one’s life was on the line, he started to think about what had happened earlier once again. This wouldn’t be a big deal if this wasn’t upwards of the third time he’d had those same exact feelings to a significant degree to Yu specifically. They weren’t very spread out either, each of the incidents had occurred sometime within the past month. So why? The solution that literally anyone else would come up with was that he had a crush; it would explain the fluttery feelings, it would explain the stuttering and blushing, it would explain why he was relieved that he had rejected Ai when she asked him out, and it was a simple conclusion that didn’t require bending over backwards to come to. But there was one fatal flaw with that theory: he wasn’t gay. He liked girls and that was that, so the possibility of him having a crush on his best friend was 0. Not even a decimal percentage more.

“I think Kanji’s starting to rub off on me,” he mumbled to himself as he grabbed a random glass from one of the cabinets and began to fill it with water. “I can’t believe I even considered ..that. ‘Must be tired.” He chuckled at himself a bit and grabbed the tray of ice cubes from the freezer to add a couple to the water. Once he was finished, he returned upstairs to give Yu his medicine and hopefully forget that he’d ever even thought about having romantic feelings for him.

  
  
  


“Hey, Yu, I-” he froze. Yu was asleep,  _ again _ . He really did fall asleep in the worst possible situations, huh. Yosuke couldn’t blame him though; the blood loss was definitely more than enough to make him feel extremely dizzy or lightheaded, so a rest was deserved. Still, did he have to do it right now? He still needed to take the medicine so his insides didn’t freeze over and the painkillers so he wouldn’t be in awful amounts of pain forever, and he really didn’t want to have to deal with a frozen corpse or witness an even more pained Yu. But there’s no way in hell that he could just wake him up, I mean he was all bundled up in those blankets he’d gotten from the floor, smiling so slightly that anyone not paying extreme attention to him like Yosuke was wouldn’t have noticed, and snuggling up to that pillow that  _ oh god that should be him why wasn’t it him why was it some stupid pillow he would be so much warmer than a dumb piece of fabric.  _ And just like that, the strange, inexplicable feelings were back. He bit his lip and tried literally everything in his power to just make it  _ stop,  _ but of course that didn’t work. His brain kept repeating the same few lines about stupid Yu and that stupid pillow and his stupidly buff chest and the time they shared a futon which he desperately wanted to do again and the times he’d caught some red on his partner’s cheeks which he’d assumed had come from one of the girls not too far away from them but oh god what if it was from him wouldn’t that be amazing and-

No. Nonononononononononono, this wasn’t happening. He liked women exclusively goddamnit, and he was going to prove it. To.. er… himself, because nobody else really thought he liked guys. Except Yu of course, with his whole denial speech not too long ago. Because of course  _ Yu _ had to be the person who thought he was gay. Of  _ course.  _

And so, for the first time that wasn’t for porn, Yosuke opened up an incognito tab on his phone and typed some words he never in a million years thought he’d see on his own phone screen.

‘Am I gay?’ Nope, too vague. Besides, he definitely liked girls so that wasn’t even in the question.

‘Am I I love with my best friend’ No, that was also too vague. And he’d probably get a lot of results for girls and their male best friends, which isn’t what he wanted.

‘How to stop having gay thoughts’ Okay that just sounded like he was in denial like Yu had said. Which he definitely wasn’t, thank you very much.

‘Do I have a crush on my best friend but we’re both guys?’ Finally he found a question that felt good enough and clicked enter. The first result was an ad for some really questionable manga site, which Yosuke scrambled to scroll past as quickly as humanly possible. Next was an ad for a pride parade, which he also scrolled past because goddamnit he was here to prove that he  _ wasn’t _ gay. From there on a majority of the results were quizzes like he’d wanted. A good amount of them seemed to be from popular clickbait sites, so Yosuke scrolled past those as well. Eventually, he came across a website he’d never heard of before with the result stating ‘How to tell if you’re gay for your best friend quiz.’ It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he’d be scrolling for hours and hours if he kept being picky so he decided to give it a try. 

‘Question One: What is your gender?’ Male, obviously. That’s not what he was questioning, and hopefully it never would be.

‘Question Two: Do you experience attraction to the opposite sex/gender?’ Duh, of course. He hoped all the questions would take this little effort to answer. 

‘Question Three: Do you experience attraction to the same sex/gender?’ He wanted oh so desperately to just click no, but that’s not the reason he was here. He had to prove that he wasn’t gay by telling the truth, not lying. So, nervously, he selected ‘I don’t know’

‘Question Four: Do you feel abnormal feelings when your best friend is around you? Examples include blushing randomly, stuttering, random pangs of jealousy when they are with someone else, and butterflies in your stomach.’ Fuck, that was exactly what he’d been feeling. He reminded himself that it was okay, that one choice wouldn’t affect the outcome, and tried not to look as he selected ‘Yes, constantly.’

The questions continued like that for a while, almost every one more difficult to answer than the last, until it was finally over. All that remained was a little green button at the bottom of the webpage that stated ‘Show results.’ He shouldn’t be this nervous; he’d clicked yes to the opposite sex question so that should negate everything else by default. But for whatever reason the shaking and heavy breathing didn’t stop. Whatever, it was just a button. A harmless little button that may or may not send him into an even worse spiral of feelings than he’d already been in. Yosuke forced his fingers to hit it and immediately glued his eyes shut. He reminded himself that it was just some text on a phone screen and eventually forced them open.

Oh wait, it was still loading. 

He would have laughed at himself in any other circumstances, but he couldn’t right now due to the sheer amount of anxiety he was feeling over the stupid ‘ am I gay’ quiz. Yosuke himself couldn’t even believe he was doing this, lord knows what Yu would have said if he found out. He’d probably start talking about how he was in denial again, which was the exact opposite of what he needed.

——

Yosuke couldn’t tell if the page took forever to load because of his piece of junk phone or because he was sweating bullets over the darn thing, but whatever the reason it felt like hours before the page redirected him to the results one. He frantically gripped onto his phone like his life depended on it, scrolling past the copious amount of porn and pride ads to get to the result. His heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest until, finally, he got to the actual result. Right there in big, bold letters read:  **You are not gay,**

He let out a breath that he’d been holding for far too long as he started at the result in happiness. He knew those weird thoughts didn’t mean anything! He was so elated at his result that he almost didn’t notice the sentence continued on, **‘.. but likely bisexual, especially for your friend.’** Wait, huh? He was a bicycle? The hell did that mean? And what about ‘For your friend’? Was it saying he had feelings for Yu? He continued reading into the small paragraph underneath the result.  **‘Bisexuals experience sexual and or romantic attraction to both genders. Bisexual people can have a preference between said genders, which can also change over time…’** Wait a minute, that was a thing? You could like both??  _ Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.  _ He forced himself to keep reading.  **‘You also more than likely have a crush on the friend you had in mind whilst taking this quiz. Go ahead and ask them out, we believe in you!’** Followed by links to a few more quizzes. 

Holy shit. 

You could like guys and girls? Like, one person could like both?? It seemed like such an obvious thing but Yosuke had never considered it as a possibility. Everything started falling into place almost immediately: The weird feelings around Yu, the fact that he liked girls yet still wasn’t sure about his partner, and even Kanji who seemingly liked guys despite his crush on Naoto. He liked guys. He was a bi..sexual? Whatever it was, he finally had a label for the weird fluttery feelings. All of his questions had just been answered, yet the uncomfortable feeling pooling in his stomach only worsened. He couldn’t be like that, he just couldn’t. It was wrong- okay no, it wasn’t  _ wrong _ per se, but it was weird. Oh wait, Yu was weird too and that wasn’t a bad thing. Not to mention the fact that he was still jealous of that goddamn pillow-

Okay, maybe he did like guys. And that was fine.. sort of. He didn’t have to acknowledge it, I mean he still liked girls so it wouldn’t really be an issue to just pretend that today never happened. But for whatever reason, the idea of just.. not indulging in his feelings felt a trillion times worse than doing so and being ..gay. Openly. 

It wasn’t all too surprising that he apparently had feelings for Yu in particular now that he thought about it, the guy looked so good it was almost criminal and that’s not even mentioning how caring and compassionate he was. But holy hell, the two bombshells right after one another didn’t exactly help his heart rate or the frantic, uneven breaths he was barely able to make. 

This was going to be fine. This was going to be 1000%  _ fine _ . All he had to do was pretend nothing happened and that nothing would happen. He just had to ignore all of the happy feelings he got from a simple wave or smile. He had to pretend that the practical heart attack he got every time Yu used his corny partner nickname back at him was absolutely nothing. Even if it made him sad, because being sad was a hell of a lot better than the alternative. 

——

His breath was finally starting to return to normal after seconds, minutes, hours, he really couldn’t tell anymore. He was about to head downstairs to go home and hopefully calm down fully, but a text message interrupted that.

Rise: hey is senpai ok?

Oh right, he forgot to give him the medicine and painkillers.

Oops.

He really did deserve to be fired as a nurse. 

He didn’t want to talk to Yu in the slightest, he’d rather die to be honest, but he didn’t exactly want Yu to die so he had to. He was still fast asleep and holding that stupid pillow, so Yosuke had to give him the displeasure of waking up. Great. 

“Yuuuuuuu, wake upppppp..” he whined, poking at his side. Normally he would’ve been more gentle and at least somewhat patient, but he didn’t really care that much in his rush to be alone as soon as humanly possible.

“Nooo.. I don’t …. wanna…..” God, was he adorable sometimes. But he didn’t have time to think about that, he had to give Yu the medicine and get the hell out of there.

“You have to take your medicine or Rise’s going to kill me. Do you want me to die?” 

“No, I guess not,” Yu said with a smile as he finally sat up. He looked a lot less in pain than he did earlier, which Yosuke was relieved to see.

“Oh, here’s the water you asked for before you fell asleep. I put ice in it but you were out for so long that it melted, sorry about that.” Yosuke walked over to the pile of assorted supplies on the floor and dug around for the two bottles of pills for a bit until he found it. He turned the body temperature medication around to read the the dosage amount on the back, and sighed as he did so. Apparently you were supposed to take them no more than thirty minutes after the injury occurred, oops. Maybe Rise really was going to kill him. 

“Here you go. Are you feeling better, by the way?” He asked as he handed over two of the pills and a painkiller. Yosuke really, really didn’t want to engage in small talk with anyone right now, let alone Yu, but it would have been overwhelmingly rude to leave without even bothering to ask how he was doing, especially considering it was his fault that any of his had occurred in the first place. 

“Yeah. A lot, actually. Thanks Yosuke, you’re a great nurse.”

“Heh… um, thanks.” The compliment meant a lot more to Yosuke than he was willing to admit, especially considering how awful he thought he was being at literally everything relating to taking care of him. He almost didn’t want to leave Yu after hearing it, but he knew it was for the better. Lord knows how much worse it would be to try and let all of this new information soak in with the guy he had an apparent crush on right next to him at almost all times. He grabbed his phone from his pocket and texted a somewhat legible response to Rise as his mind scrambled to find an excuse to leave as soon as possible.

“I.. uh… just remembered that I have a lot of homework due tomorrow! Yeah.. uh… sorry about that! Hope you feel better and stuff, bye!” That was quite possibly the worst acting he’d ever done, surprising considering he had to act like a girl for a whole day during that accursed pageant, but he honestly didn’t care at the moment. He, mistakingly, gave a parting glance at Yu, who was frowning slightly.

“Since when have you ever cared about doing your homework?” Yu questioned. It was clearly meant to be a joke of some sort but Yosuke couldn’t help but feel like he was being interrogated.

“Uhlookatthetimegottagobye!!” He forced out with a single breath. Seriously, homework?  _ That  _ was the best excuse he could come up with?? Oh well, no point in dwelling on it now. 

——

It somehow felt like both seconds and hours before Yosuke was at home. To say that he rushed there would be an understatement. He basically ran the entire way there, in spite of the even more confused looks from passersby than when he was carrying Yu. It wasn’t that he wanted to be home in particular, he just wanted to be alone and have somewhere to gather this thoughts about ..everything.. in peace. Which now that he was thinking about it wouldn’t be very easy considering both his parents and Teddie were home, whoops. Being harassed by Teddie about Yu’s condition was still a billion times better than having to be next to the person he needed to gather his thoughts about, though. He fumbled with his key and failed to open the door more times than he would ever admit before he finally managed to put it in correctly and open the stupid thing. He barely managed to get a single foot inside before, as he’d predicted, being interrupted by a frantic Teddie.

“Yosuke!!! Is Sensei okay?” He said so quickly with so much impatience in his eyes that Yosuke was worried for how long he’d just been standing by the doorway.

“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s probably asleep right now so don’t try cal-” he tried to finish his sentence but cut himself off as the blond bear (?) ran off towards the cell phone his parents had given him for whatever reason. So much for Yu’s nap.

Oh god, even thinking about his name felt.. off now. Even though nothing had really changed between them and nobody else even knew what was going on, something still felt wrong. A part of him still wanted to deny everything and go right back to square one, but the rest of him knew that wouldn’t help. He’d accepted parts of himself he didn’t like before, so what was the big deal about doing it again? Right, this was just like accepting a Shadow. Suddenly, Yosuke was incredibly thankful that his own other self had been so dull and easy to acknowledge and felt a wave of sympathy for Kanji. If he was in his shoes while they were in the bathhouse, he probably would’ve gotten everybody killed by refusing to accept himself. That was.. scary to think about. 

As if he was reading his mind, he got a message from Kanji not too long after the thought of his Shadow came to mind. It wasn’t anything surprising, just a ‘yo is senpai ok?’ but the fact that it was from Kanji made him think. He really did owe him an apology for everything, but now didn’t feel right to do it. It would be hard to explain his sudden change of heart without mentioning his crush on a certain someone, which he was barely able to accept himself. Talking about it to anyone else was simply out of the question, at least for now. So, with partial guilt, he simply typed back a generic response and shut off his phone. 

This was weird.

This was so, so weird.

It had never really mattered to Yosuke whether he had ‘true’ feelings for someone or not, up until now. That was because he could just walk up to Chie or Yukiko or Rise or whoever and start flirting with them because the worst case scenario was that he’d get kicked in the nuts and have to blow yet another paycheck on steak. Which although that sucked, it was nowhere near comparable to potentially losing the closest friend he’d ever have over something as stupid as a crush. Maybe that was why he was so in denial at first? Or maybe he just subconsciously thought that every gay (or.. bisexual? Was that what that quiz said? He should really start paying more attention to things like that) person looked like Kanji’s Shadow. Either way, it didn’t matter. The point was that he accepted himself now. Yet another ding indicating a text message interrupted his thoughts, and thankfully it wasn’t from Yu. It was instead Chie, who was asking how he was doing and also asking if she’d left her chicken wings in the medical bag. Wow, way to interrupt the mood. Yosuke laughed, not because it was a particularly funny scenario but just to feel something other than weird conflicting feelings today, and typed out a reply. Once he was finished, he glanced up at the clock on his wall. It was only 7pm, which way way earlier than he’d normally even consider going to sleep, but to hell with it. Today had been mentally draining enough as-is, staying up too late and waking up exhausted would only add fuel to the fire. He muted his phone notifications, (mostly to avoid having to read any messages from Yu) and bundled himself up under the covers, wishing a certain partner was there next to him.

And this time, with significantly less shame.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Valentine’s & Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yosuke tries not to get his hopes up, fails, and somehow his dreams come true

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAH ITS DONE ONG
> 
> Also side note but uh does anyone want to do writing trades? I need to practice my dialogue and word choice but I don’t really know what to write for it. My Tumblr is @brookewritessometimes so we can talk there if you’d like

Valentine's Day had never really been a big deal for Yosuke.

Okay scratch that, it really, really had _ ,  _ but he’d gotten so used to friendship chocolate at best and nothing at worst that he’d learned to pretend that it wasn’t. Emphasis on the word pretend, because it seemed that every year his supposedly nonexistent expectations were completely crushed. 

He tried, like he tried every year, not to expect anything as he walked into his homeroom. Per usual it didn’t really work, because Yosuke felt his heart rate go up immediately upon entering. He reminded himself that the most he would’ve gotten was some more pity chocolate, but the very small and logical side of Yosuke didn’t listen to the larger, incredibly desperate for a relationship side. So yet again, he was expecting both way too much and nothing at the same time. And, just like every year, he felt his happiness begin to crumble as he looked over at his desk. It was as normal as it ever was, with no sign of chocolates or anyth- Wait, was that..?

It couldn’t be.

Sitting on top of his should-be empty desk was a red envelope, neatly and carefully placed on top of a box of heart-shaped chocolates. Yosuke did a double take and confirmed that it was in fact his desk, and it seemed to be his name written on the envelope from what he could tell. Before he had the chance to consider who had wrote it or if it was some sort of mistake, Chie ran up to him and started talking. 

“Oh my gosh, finally! You saw the letter and the box, right? Hurry up and open it, we’ve been waiting for like 10 minutes!” She was practically bouncing with excitement, which Yosuke would have been doing if the implications of what was on his desk had fully hit him yet. He still couldn’t comprehend that someone had actually bothered to write him what he could only assume was a confession letter, and even given him chocolates on top of that. His body basically moved on it’s own as he sped walked over to his desk, too excited to question why Chie was so anxious for him to open it. From there he confirmed that the name on the letter was in fact his, making him relax a bit because at the very least it wasn’t a mistake. It could still be a prank or something, but at least he wasn’t opening a confession letter meant for someone else.

“C’mon, open it! Openitopenitopenitopenitopen-” 

“Yeah yeah, I’m getting there. Why are you more excited than me about  _ my  _ confession letter?” That was a huge lie, Yosuke was probably about a trillion times more eager than Chie was to get the thing open and find out who had feelings for him, but he tried keeping it all contained for now. He tried his hardest not to rip the paper on the envelope seeing as it looked really nice and possibly expensive, but winded up tearing a tiny bit of the corner anyways. Yosuke bit his lip in anticipation as he pulled a small, square shaped note out of it.

“Ooh, what’s it say?” Said a slightly curious, though nowhere as much as Chie, Yukiko. Both of them as well as Yu who had wandered over were now hovering over his desk in excitement and curiosity. It felt really nice to have all of their attention on him, even if he could barely focus on it because  _ someone had put a confession letter on his desk.  _ He turned it over to see who had gone out of their way and done all of this for him, and sighed. 

**‘Yosuke** ,’ it started, the lettering similar to the front of the envelope but not quite as elaborate or stylish, ‘ **Meet me on the rooftop at lunch. From, Anonymous.’**

“Awwww, they didn’t even say who they are? Lame,” mumbled Chie with disappointment. For what was quite possibly the first time, Yosuke agreed with her. Now he was going to have to confront this person alone and on the school rooftop? What if he wanted to say no? That was going to be so awkward. And why was it so short? Could they not have bothered with some sort of cheesy compliment at least?

“Yeah, it sucks. Oh well, I guess I’ll find out at lunch.” He tucked the letter into his bag, but as he looked up he remembered the box of chocolates.

“You have to tell us who it is when they confront you, promise?”

Yosuke sighed. “I promise,” he mumbled back with almost immediate regret. Now he’d have to tell Chie about whoever this random girl was, great. Or guy, now that he was thinking about it. The fact that he’d seriously entertained the idea of another guy writing him a ‘confession letter’ (could he even really call it that considering it was just telling him to go to the roof at lunch?) was a problem in and itself, but the fact that he  _ wanted _ it to be a guy was so much worse.  _ No it isn’t,  _ he mentally scolded himself. He’d gotten better with the whole ‘gay freakouts’ as Yu has put it, but not by all that much. The idea of doing anything like ..that .. with literally any guy except for Yu still felt weird, unnatural, uncomfortable, and about a million other negative adjectives he could throw out there. It’s like Yu was some sort of deity that transcended his concept of sexuality. Which actually wouldn’t be all too surprising considering he could hold multiple Personas at once. Wait, maybe he was a god or som-

No, he was getting off track. The point was that a confession from any male except a certain partner made him want to throw up and curl into a ball. Which was a massive problem, but he’d worry about that if the time came. No, what he needed to focus on right now was the note in front of him. He never bothered to pay attention to small details like handwriting, (something that he now very much regretted) so that wasn’t any help. Neither was the wording, almost anyone could or would have written that. Okay, so he’d figured out nothing. Maybe the red envelope was a clue somehow? He doubted it. Maybe the chocolates? Oh right, the chocolates! He should probably open them to .. investigate. Or something. That’s what he told himself anyway as he ripped the lid off of the box. He would have just shoved every single bit of chocolate in his face at that exact moment, if not for the tiny amount of self control he had left stopping him for just barely long enough to notice yet another note on the inside. This time it was just a sticky note, stuck to the inside of the lid.

**‘I hope these are alright, I’m not sure what type of chocolates you like.’** Alright, now he could forgive the stranger for the vague note. And at least he had another clue to go by; that they didn’t know what kind of chocolates he likes. Something that eliminated approximately no one, he realized. Eh, he’d figure it out at lunch. Lunch was only a few hours away, right? He could wait that long... right? Yosuke knew he’d probably be jumping up and down with anticipation within the next ten minutes or so, but at least he had the chocolate to eat while he did so. With that thought, he randomly picked one from the box and threw it in his mouth. Immediately after that , he fell in love with whatever stranger had given these to him because holy hell they were  _ delicious _ . It was actually a caramel and not a chocolate, he realized, but it didn’t really matter. The point was that it was amazing and he may or may not accept this stranger’s love confession based solely on their choice of Valentines candy. He managed to throw a few more in his mouth before, unfortunately, the bell rang and Ms. Kashiwagi walked into the room. He didn’t know how she would react and frankly didn’t want to know, so he put the lid back on the box and shoved it in his desk.

——

Homeroom could not have passed by any slower.

Homeroom was always slow because it was homeroom and they never did anything, but today it felt so much longer it was unreal. Of course he knew the exact reason for it, that stupid letter, but it still shouldn’t have affected his perception of time this much. It really wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things anyway. He’d just go up to the roof, frantically stumble and apologize to whoever this poor person was, and go back down the stairs to eat lunch. Less than a month- no, it had barely been over a week- ago he would’ve been absolutely ecstatic. He would’ve been jumping up and down with excitement over the thought that it could be Yukiko or Rise or any other hot girl pining after him, but now? He didn’t really have much of an opinion. The idea of one of them having given him a fancy letter and a box of chocolates chocolates should have made him feel at least a tiny bit excited, but it didn’t. Because, as cheesy as it sounded, he only wanted Yu. Anyone else just seemed.. wrong. He knew it was impossible- okay, not  _ impossible _ , just so incredibly unlikely that it was basically that way. Yu wasn’t the type of person to write an anonymous letter, at least he assumed. The letter made a little too much sense; building up anticipation throughout the day, confessing to them in alone in what was probably the most ‘romantic’ place in the entire school, it all made sense. For any normal person at least. Yu, however, was an absolute dork. A completely adorable one, but a dork nonetheless. He would have confessed with some cheesy pickup line or randomly while they were hanging out or anything  _ except  _ this. It just didn’t seem like him, and that was only a tiny part of the reason why this absolutely couldn’t be Yu’s doing. The other half was that Yu, you know,  _ needed actual romantic feelings for him.  _ And that was even more unlikely than him writing an anonymous letter. Yu could have literally any girl (or hell, even any guy at this point) at this entire school, so what reason could he possibly have for choosing him? He could have  _ the _ Risette, or be the first to complete the famed Amagi challenge, or literally anyone else in the entire school. So why would he ask the Junes kid who crashed his bike every other day? Not to mention that he’d have to like guys in the first place, which was doubtful at best.

Then again, there was the thing Yosuke had dubbed the ‘movie incident’ where Yu had said he’d rather date him then any of the girls on the Investigation Team. He really hoped it meant something, but he was doubtful. Plus there was the whole thing where they shared a futon and got way more physically close than any two friends should. Yu was just a weird person though, so it wouldn’t have surprised him in the slightest if those were just some of his quirks. Though something did feel a little off; he wasn’t  _ that _ weird. Maybe he had a chance after al- 

Before he could finish his thoughts he snapped back to reality and realized that the bell had rung everyone was leaving the room. He scrambled to pack up as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t have to be the last person in the room, almost dropping his delicious caramels in the process, and bolted out of the classroom. 

..And then ran straight into Yu. 

“Ow!”

“Ah, I’m sorry! I guess I wasn’t paying attention,” he said, though it was more of a nervous squeak than anything. One downside to the whole gay for your best friend thing; he tended to do that a lot more than he used to. 

“Oh, it’s not a big deal.” Yu flashed him a smile that had absolutely no right to be as cute as it was. Yosuke could already feel the pace of his heartbeat quicken ever so slightly because of it. Stupid Yu and his stupid smile. Somehow he managed to tear his eyes away from that beautiful sight and look literally anywhere else to not get caught, and found his eyes catching something in the other’s hands.

It wasn’t surprising, really. Yu was really popular for whatever reason, especially with girls, so he shouldn’t have been so shocked. But the sight of a box of heart shaped chocolates in his partner’s hands made Yosuke’s heart ache a bit. He managed to mumble out something about being jealous to try and act how pre- gay awakening Yosuke would have reacted and forced himself to look away.  _ What if he said yes? Whatifhesaidyeswhatifhesaidyeswhatifhesaid- _

“Oh, do you want these? You can have them, I don’t really care for chocolate.”  _ Oh.  _ Well, judging by that, he definitely hadn’t.

“Uh, sure? But I meant that I’m jealous of like.. what it implies. Was she hot?” Every sentence was getting more and more painful to spit out of his mouth. Did he really used to be like this less than two weeks ago? He was actually jealous of the girl that had confessed, if anything. Having the confidence to actually confess to Yu was basically a dream, and it would be a million times easier if he didn’t have to risk his closest friendship over it. 

Yu cocked his head in confusion for a brief second before seemingly understanding what he’d meant. “Ohhh. Um.. I guess? I’m not even completely sure if it was a girl to be honest, they ran away immediately after they handed it to me. Didn’t you get some sort of confession too though?” Of course he had to go and being up the possibility of it being a guy, now he had to come up with a classic Yosuke joke such as ‘eww gay people are gross’ so he wouldn’t notice any sudden changes. The obvious solution to this was to just admit that he was wrong and that he shouldn’t have shit on Kanji and literally every other non-straight person for existing, Yosuke knew that himself, but he was afraid. Afraid that he’d have to explain his sudden change of mindset and afraid he wouldn’t be able to do that without mentioning his..  _ other _ sudden change of mindset. So he had to keep spouting his homophobic garbage, at least until he had the confidence to admit his wrongs. Which would be a long, long time from now. 

“So you accepted a confession from someone who might’ve been a guy? Seems kinda gay to me.” He really, really wanted to punch old Yosuke in the face right about now. And current Yosuke for not having the confidence to admit that he used to be an asshole but isn’t anymore.

“Wasn’t your letter completely anonymous though? Yours could be from a guy too, you know.” _ Yeah, and I desperately hope it is. _

“Oh, I didn’t even think about that.”  _ Yes I have.  _ “I hope not.”  _ I don’t know what I’m going to do if it isn’t. _

“That.. wasn’t as bad of a reaction as I was expecting.”  _ It’s because I want it to be from you. _

“It’s ‘cuz that was totally a chick’s handwriting on the letter.”  _ I hope you have feminine handwriting. _

They continued like that for a few more minutes, with each word getting more and more painful for Yosuke to spit out of his mouth, until he was finally at his next period. 

Today was going to be a long day.

——

If this rooftop person wasn’t Yu (Which it couldn’t be because duh), Yosuke was about ready to jump off of a bridge. He’d expected today to go by slowly due to the letter, but he never expected it to be  _ this _ slow. So far today he’d completely embarrassed himself in every class due to not paying attention to what was going on and getting the questions wrong, ran into a trash can (twice), and eaten an entire box of caramels that he really didn’t want to know the calorie count of. So if this stupid letter was a prank or from literally anyone except his partner, all of it would have been in vain. 

Oh well, at least it was finally time. 

The walk up the stairs to the roof shouldn’t have been as nerve racking as it was. It was either a prank or someone he didn’t have feelings for, neither of which should have resulted in heavy breathing and a pounding heart. The walk was also way longer than it should have been, because the last time he’d checked it didn’t take ten years to climb a flight of stairs. He eventually got up there, though, and all that did was make the feelings of anxiety worse. It wasn’t Yu. It wasn’t Yu because even in some crazy alternate universe where  _ the _ Yu Narukami could have feelings for the stupid pervy Junes kid, what reason would he have to actually confess them? The only thing he’d expressed towards non- heterosexual relationships had been discomfort and disgust, so why would he think that would work? Yu was weird but he wasn’t dumb, and confessing feelings to someone who seemed disgusted in people like you for literally just existing seemed pretty damn dumb. 

So there he stood in the rooftop doorway, knowing disappointment was inevitable yet still clinging onto a tiny shred of hope that maybe it was Yu. Except it wasn’t, he knew that. But maybe, just maybe, this was that weird alternate universe.

With a heart so full of mixed emotions that it just might burst, he raised a hand to the freezing metal of the door and pushed. And from there, he saw…

No one.

Right, of course. At least he wouldn’t have to reject anyone. He laughed at himself for even bothering with that stupid pep talk, (which was mostly just to get rid of the disappointment coursing through him) and began to turn around. 

But then, something that was previously obscured by a wall came into view.

Was that..?

No, it wasn't.

It wasn’t, it couldn’t, it-

“Hi.” 

Holy fuck.

_ Holy fuck. _

Yosuke tried to speak, he really did, but nothing came out except a disgruntled squeak. Instead, he simply took in the sight in front of him. 

There’s no way that this was actually happening. There’s no way that the Yu Narukami that had turned down so many girls, had heard nothing from him about homosexual relationships that wasn’t downright awful, and could probably have any person on the entire earth if he wanted was standing in front of him right now. It simply wasn’t possible.

“Oh god, you’re crying.. I shouldn’t have done this, I knew it would end badly. I’m sorry,” Yu spoke with a tone so guilt ridden and sad that it didn’t feel like he was even talking to the same person he was a few hours ago. He was so focused on whatever the hell was happening that he didn’t even notice the tears in his eyes until the other had mentioned it, which explained why everything was getting progressively more and more blurry. He couldn’t tell for sure with the tears in his own eyes, but he was pretty sure Yu was crying as well. It wasn’t a pretty sight in the slightest, not that he could do anything about it because his body  _ still wouldn’t move.  _ It was completely frozen, which he kind of understood given how much of a surprise this had been. At some point he tried to speak once again, this time managing to spit out something at least intelligible, “Wait.. don’t.” Wow, great choice of words Yosuke. 

“Hm? Oh, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I should really just g-AH!” Yosuke cut him off by nearly tackling him with a bear hug. It was probably a bad idea considering how high up they were and that he couldn’t exactly tell where they were due to the tears in his eyes, but that was the last thing on his mind.

“I’m so happy.”

“You are..?” Oh right, he still had a lot of explaining to do regarding...well, everything. 

“Can we, um, sit down somewhere? This might take a while.” Yu nodded in response and led him over towards the metal beams they typically sat on while eating lunch on the rooftop. Yosuke still couldn’t believe that this was actually happening, it felt like something straight out of a dream. Wait, what if it was a dream? He pinched himself a bit just to make sure and yup, definitely not a dream.

He didn’t know what to say in the slightest, and how could he?  _ The  _ Yu Narukami, the absolute dork who’d rejected going out with the most popular girls in the school just to turn around and hunt for cats all afternoon, had just confessed to  _ him _ . Him, of all people. At some point (Yosuke genuinely couldn’t remember when, at this point it felt as if time had stopped moving all together) he’d wiped his tears away and he could fully appreciate the view in front of him. He didn’t know if it was on purpose or not, but Yu was sitting incredibly close to him. That was definitely for the better, as every little detail of the other’s face was hitting him like a brick. An amazing, heartwarming brick. There were tiny snowflakes nestled into his grey hair, which was just as adorable as it was alarming to Yosuke that this was the first time he’d noticed that it was snowing or just how cold it was. Yu’s face was also flushed, from the weather or something else he wasn’t quite sure, though he hoped for the latter. On top of that all, Yu’s hand was alarmingly close to his own. One of the two coherent thoughts running through his brain was telling him to grab it, which he desperately wanted to do, but the other coherent thought was telling him that maybe he should explain why he’d appeard to be homophobic until about 30 seconds ago and was now looking at Yu like a full course meal. 

“I… um….” okay, this was going to be a lot more difficult than he thought. Every time he’d imagined a relationship of any sort with Yu, it always skipped to the actual relationship part. He’d never once imagined how to explain his logic or why he’d been so awful towards Kanji. “I really.. uh…. ireallylikeyoupleasedon’tgoi’msorryforbeinganasshole.” He looked Yu in the eyes with hope that he caught at least some of that sentence, and immediately turned away as he realized just how hard maintaining eye contact was.

“Wait, really? I.. wasn’t expecting that at all. Could you um.. look at me please?” Yu spoke with caution and compassion. Yosuke hesitantly turned back around and raised his eyes back up to meet his partner’s and oh god he was going to pass out. They were less than a foot apart and now they were making eye contact again. Yosuke was also more than fifty percent sure that you shouldn’t be able to hear your heartbeat in your ears but he was too far gone to care at this point. 

“Yeah and I wasn’t expecting you to.. ya know..  _ this _ .” Yu laughed at that, but it wasn’t his normal laugh. It was hesitant and seemingly only there so that they felt less awkward. This was his  _ partner _ , goddamnit! They should never feel like this around each other! So, afraid, he reached forward and gripped onto Yu’s hand. 

Which he immediately regretted. 

Not because it was uncomfortable or anything, the polar opposite actually, but now it was even harder to focus on talking. Or anything else for that matter. Thankfully, it wasn’t him who had to speak next.

“I thought you were going to freak out and run away. Or laugh. Or literally anything other than this. But I’m not exactly complaining.” Yu laughed again at that, more genuinely this time and with a slight smile to go along with it. The tense atmosphere around them was still there, though it was slowly dissolving into something more calm and comforting.

“I probably would have up until last week, to be honest. I really owe you an apology for, well, everything. I was such an ass to both you and Kanji while trying to cover up my own insecurities. So yeah, I’m sorry.” Even though it was only a few sentences, Yosuke felt oddly proud of himself for managing to say all of that. Old Yosuke would probably be arguing with himself and trying to find some justification for how he’d acted, and the fact that new Yosuke wasn’t doing that was satisfying in and of itself. He continued staring, his eyes darting between Yu’s flushed face and his eyes faster than a professional sprinter, before realizing that Yu hadn’t replied yet. Hesitantly, he added, “That probably wasn’t enough.. I’m awful at this sort of stuff..” he trailed off and felt his newfound self confidence slowly fade away. He’d been a complete asshole up until like 3 minutes ago, why would Yu forgive him so easi-

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself.”  _ Right. He’d just confessed to you, idiot. He wouldn’t do that if he hated your guts.  _ “I can’t really speak for the others but the fact that you even said any of that is proof that you’ve changed. So I forgive you.” Though it shouldn’t have been much of a shock, Yosuke couldn’t help but release a sigh of relief at that. He tightened his grip on Yu’s hand ever so slightly, relishing in the warmth it gave his otherwise cold body. Not that he could really tell it was cold though, with his heart beating so fast that it could power the entirety of Inaba and still have energy left over. 

“Thanks, that means a lot. So when did you, um, ya know..” Yosuke almost laughed at his own word choice. He sounded like a kindergartener talking about their crush, but he didn’t mind. He’d already come to terms with so much in such a short period of time that learning to talk like being gay wasn’t some unspoken taboo could wait a few more days.

“Oh, it hasn’t actually been that long. I think.. two months, maybe? A few days before you asked me who I’d rather date on the Investigation Team, I think. The only reason I remembered was because I had to lie about not having a crush on anyone so that you wouldn’t interrogate me on it.”

“Oh god, I remember that. I can’t believe I accidentally made you lie so I wouldn’t harass you about who you liked. And how defensive I got after you said you’d rather date me? Ughhh, it was so embarrassing.” Yu then muttered something inaudible, causing Yosuke to ask, “Hm?” 

“It was cute. How you got all flustered and stuff. “

“Wha-?!” Yosuke reflexively let go of the hand he was holding and scooted towards the other end of the beam. The first thing he noticed afterwards was how much he regretted that decision, seeing as everything felt freezing again and there was a distinct lack of a hand to hold. The second thing he noticed was that he actually liked being called cute..? It was a knee jerk reaction to pull away due to old habits, but the heartbeat he could already feel throbbing his ears got slightly louder after the compliment. Never once in his life had Yosuke thought of the word cute in relation to himself because  _ he wasn’t a girl dammit,  _ but now that he had nothing to deny? It felt way nicer than it had any right to. Not that he’d admit it out loud though. Yu was perceptive, he’d figure it out soon enough.

“Hey, come back! It’s cold and your hands were warm.”

“That’s the only reason you want me back? How romantic.” Yosuke questioned jokingly and scooted back to the other side of the beam.

“If I told you it was because your face is an adorable shade of red right now and I want to look at it more closely you wouldn’t have come back over here,” Yu said, sounding way more matter-of-factly than anyone ever should while flirting. Was he even flirting? Yosuke hoped so. 

“Wh- mmfine, I guess you’re right.” Yosuke subconsciously reached up to his cheeks after Yu’s comment. Cute. Adorable. It was only then that the true urges set in. Before he’d been too distracted by  _ holy shit this is actually happening  _ and  _ woah his hands feel really nice _ , but now that things had somewhat returned to normal he felt like he was going to implode if he wasn’t given more affection at this very moment. He decided to not give in to his brain’s overwhelming desire to tackle Yu to the ground and kiss him all over his face until the end of time itself and instead buried his head into the crook of his partner’s neck. Yu liked cats, right? Maybe he could just become a cat and that would make Yu like him even more. Did they even do that? Hopefully. Only mere seconds after trying to become a cat for Yu’s attention, Yosuke heard a laugh. A slow, near silent chuckle that seemed to burn itself into his memory and replay over and over again. He never wanted it to stop, even if that meant having it stuck in his head for hours on end like with some of his favorite songs. 

“You never gave me the chance to ask because you ran away from me when I called you cute but, uh, when did you get feelings for me? You said about a week ago, but was there a specific moment?” Yosuke sighed in happiness as he felt a pair of fingers stroke through his hair. It was probably at least a bit messed up or out of place now, but that was one of the last things on his mind. He’d learned the appeal of having a cat way back when they shared the futon together, but now he realized that being the cat wasn’t half bad either. 

“Hm.. when was it again? Oh, it was right after you got all banged up and Yukiko was busy so I had to take care of you. I mean I liked you for a while before that, that was just the first time I acknowledged it instead of just denying everything. I took some quiz thing that said I was bisexual and that was the first time I realized that someone could like both girls and guys. That’s why I left so suddenly that day. Looking back I probably shouldn’t have done that while you were injured, sorry.” He looked up, finally not being afraid to make eye contact anymore, and was met with a smirk. He was confused, and opened his mouth to ask about it before he remembered what catching feelings while taking care of someone half-naked implied. “And it  _ wasn’t  _ because you were shirtless, okay? So stop looking at me like that!”

“Aww, how disappointing,” he said, followed by another one of those angelic laughs that he really needed to stop and appreciate more often. “But besides that, I really didn’t mind. You leaving early that day, I mean. At least I know why you left like that now, I was pretty worried for a while.” Yosuke unintentionally smiled at the thought of Yu, bleeding and freezing cold, worrying about  _ him  _ just for leaving early. He really didn’t deserve someone so kind. “Oh, and before I forget..” Yu moved away from Yosuke to go grab something from a plastic bag that he just now noticed was there. His first thought should have been ‘Oh, I wonder what’s in the bag?’ But instead it was unintelligible screaming and a voice in the back of his mind yelling to be touched again, despite the fact that it had been.. three seconds? Four? That was going to be fun to deal with when Yu left Inaba and he’d have to go without affection for months on end. Oh well, that was a problem for future Yosuke to deal with.

“I was going to just leave this with the chocolates and the letter but Nanako, uh, insisted on decorating it.” Yosuke was a bit confused on how Nanako wanting to decorate something made Yu not put it on his desk, but he didn’t comment on it. 

“By the way, speaking of the letter, why’d you even leave it? You don’t seem like the kind of person to be theatrical about something like that.”

“Oh, I was still debating whether to actually show up,” Yu said once again, as nonchalant as ever.

“Wait, what? You were gonna ditch me? I mean I don’t really blame you but…” Yosuke trailed off. He wanted to spill out all of the feelings that he’d subconsciously had for the better part of a year and that he’d consciously had for about a week, but everything he came up with sounded straight out of some cheesy romance novel. Eventually, he decided on. “..I’m glad you didn’t.” 

“Yeah, I’m glad I didn’t either. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t ..this. Again, I’m not complaining though.” Yu looked away from whatever he holding and gave him a smile. A warm, genuine smile that was now burned into his mind along with that sweet laugh and those gorgeous eyes and- he decided to stop right there in fear of somehow getting even more flustered, and focused on what Yu was holding instead.

“Here you go. I feel bad for making you miss lunch so here’s a fork for you to eat it with. Though it’s not exactly the most healthy lunch..” Oh, so it was food? That was exciting. He knew from experience that Yu was an amazing cook, so whatever he’d prepared was definitely going to be delicious. Yu then handed it over to him with another smile, this one being more nervous. Yosuke didn’t really like looking at a nervous Yu, so he took whatever it was out of his hands and tore off the tin foil covering it. 

He immediately understood why Yu hadn’t put it with the note. 

Underneath the wrappings was a red velvet cake covered with various doodles in different colors of frosting. It took longer than he was willing to admit to decipher whatever hieroglyphics Nanako had drawn, but eventually he figured most of it out. There were two stick figures, one labeled ‘big bro!!’ and the other labeled ‘yoskue,’ and a black box labeled ‘Junes!’ With little hearts surrounding them in red frosting. His stick figure also seemed to be wearing a wedding dress, which was as funny as it was odd for him not to freak out about something so feminine. Yosuke’s heart already felt like it was going to burst from everything that had already happened, after seeing something so adorable it very well might have. He tried his hardest to keep a straight face, but the wedding dress combined with the horrible misspelling of his name made him nearly fall over with laughter. 

“I- it’s beautiful.” He managed between laughs. Slowly, he calmed himself down and realized that maybe laughing at his new boyfriend’s (Were they even boyfriends yet? He was too anxious to ask) little sister wasn’t the best way to start off a relationship.

“You know what else is beautiful?”

“Wha- don’t you dare!”

“Awwww. But it’s tr-”

“We have been dating for like 10 minutes, I am  _ not _ going to let you get all sappy with me.” It took Yosuke an embarrassingly long time to realize that he’d just claimed that they were dating. It shouldn’t have been so anxiety inducing considering they had literally just confessed to each other, but Yosuke was so new to all of this that he couldn’t help it. At least Yu didn’t object. Wait, that meant they were boyfriends. Lovers. Partner partners? That last one felt oddly cute. Even though most of him was overjoyed, there was still a part of him that knew his dad would kill him if he ever found out about this. That was.. disheartening to say the least, but he wasn’t going to let it dictate his own emotions more than it already had. That was an old Yosuke thing.

“Okay, so how long until I  _ can _ be sappy?”

“10 years.”

“Alright.”

And with that, he dug into the cake. Okay not immediately, he made sure to grab back onto Yu’s hand first. He started by eating the ‘big bro!!’ piece, which Yosuke was kind of disappointed that Yu didn’t make some dirty comment about. He wasn’t really surprised that it tasted fantastic because of who baked it, but that didn’t change the fact that it was still absolutely delicious.

“Partner this is like, amazing. I mean I knew you were a good cook but  _ damn. _ Those caramels were delicious too, I think you’re just blessed when it comes to sweets.”

“Oh, I’m glad you like it- wait, caramels? Were they not chocolates?”

“Nope, but they were still fantastic. Do you want a piece of this, by the way? I don’t want to eat all of it by myself.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m not really hungry, thank you though.”

  
  


Yosuke continued eating and making small talk with Yu for a little while, eventually moving onto one of the pieces with ‘Junes!’ on them. It seemed that things were back to normal and that the tense atmosphere had completely disappeared, which Yosuke was overjoyed about. He’d gotten worried that the confession would make them feel awkward around each other, but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

As they were chatting, however, Yosuke noticed something about the cake. It had his name on it along with a wedding dress, so whoever decorated it must have known who Yu was confessing to. But it was Nanako who decorated the cake. Did Yu tell her?

“Wait.. did you tell Nanako about this? Like.. that you were gonna confess to me? I don’t really mind, I just can’t believe a 6 year old knew about this before I did.”

“I wasn’t going to but she wanted to know who’s name to put on the cake. Now she’s really excited to see how it went, she thinks we’re going to get married at Junes.”

“Aww, that’s cute. Tell her she can be our flower g- wait,  _ Junes??  _ I’m not really surprised because it’s Nanako but we’re  _ not _ getting married at Junes. And wait, we’re not getting married at all!”

“We’re not getting married  _ yet. _ ” That caused Yosuke to almost choke on the piece of cake he was eating. The realization that they might actually get married someday was.. oddly exhilarating? Even though they’d only been dating for like twenty minutes, Yosuke already hoped that it would happen at some point. Maybe Yu would even manage to convince him to wear a dress somehow. He doubted it. He continued fantasizing about their wedding, which he knew he really shouldn’t have because they hadn’t even been dating for a single day yet, until hearing Yu’s voice sent him back to reality.

“Hey, Yosuke? We have class in ten minutes.”

Oh right, they were still in school. Class was the absolute last thing on Yosuke’s mind until the very moment that Yu mentioned it, but now the mere thought of it made him angry. He felt like screaming when Yu leaned away from him for 5 seconds to grab the cake, how awful was it going to be to have to spend all day like that? They only had one more class together too, so he wouldn’t even be able to look at him for a majority of the day? That was going to drag on even longer than homeroom did.

“Is class really that important, though? And even if I absolutely have to go to class, ten minutes is more than enough time to get there.”

“But both of our classes are on the other side of the building though. And you need to stop and put the cake in your locker.”

“Not if I eat the entire thing right now.”

“Yosuke,  _ no. _ ”

“Why not?”

“ **No.** ”

They continued jokingly arguing like that for a while, Yosuke desperately trying to convince Yu that he could  _ definitely _ walk to class in 2 minutes, until he realized that they’d spent more time arguing than they were arguing over.

“We have 5 minutes until class now.”

“And? We’ll be fine. If you care so much why don’t you just go without me?”

“That’s because.. I… uh…. c’mon, let’s just go.” Hearing Yu stutter and falter like that felt gave Yosuke a sudden burst of confidence from just how out of place it felt. Usually it was the other way around, with Yosuke being turned into a blushy mess that could barely speak, so finally turning the tables on him felt amazing.

“Aww, you don’t want to be without me for even a few minutes? I didn’t know you were so clingy, Partner. It’s kinda cute.” Yosuke made direct eye contact as he spoke, which wasn’t all that difficult considering he wasn’t the one being teased this time. Yu’s face was a shade of red so bright that it had been burned into Yosuke’s mind along with basically everything else that had happened today. His eyes were also darting around and trying to look everywhere except Yosuke, which only helped his temporary boost of confidence. He remained scarily quiet for a while though, making Yosuke worry that maybe he’d gone too far, until he finally heard a quiet whisper.

“Hey, Yosuke?”

“Yeah?”

And that’s when Yosuke’s world stopped.

He barely even had time to comprehend what was happening as Yu leaned in and _kissed him. Yu was kissing him._ Yu Narukami, who could have any person he wanted and then some, was kissing _him._ If it weren’t for him spending all of his energy on trying to kiss back without having a heart attack, Yosuke very likely would have cried again. He’d anticipated that in the sub-zero percent chance that something this would ever happen that it would be picturesque and just like in the movies. It would have been after their first date, slow and romantic, a bouquet of roses in hand, etc, but of course not. No, his first kiss with what very well may have been a god of some sort was on the school rooftop, initiated by an argument over whether or not to skip class, and done while holding a half eaten abomination of a cake. Not to mention that he could barely feel it due to his sense of touch deciding to stop working. He found all of that somewhat fitting, though. It definitely wasn’t like it was in the movies, but most movies didn’t have the characters fall in love through solving a case of TV-oriented murders either.

After what was either seconds or hours, Yosuke’s perception of time had gone completely out the window at this point, Yu pulled away and looked at Yosuke like he was a deer in the headlights. Which was exactly what he felt like.

“How about we go to class now? I don’t want you to be late.” Yosuke started to protest, but stopped almost immediately. Yu had just  _ kissed him,  _ the least he could do was not throw another fit about not wanting to go to class. Besides, Yu had already intertwined their fingers together and undoing them was the last thing he wanted to do. 

“You also might want to stop in the bathroom before class, your face is really red.” Yosuke couldn’t tell what was worse; the fact that he sounded completely genuine about it or the fact that he was probably right. Too flustered to speak properly, he merely grunted in response as they walked over to the door. Yosuke pushed it open as slowly as possible, not wanting to waste a second of time that could be spent alone with Yu. Once it was open, the two walked forward until...

“Oh my god, there you are! I thought you were never going to- ... _ oh _ .”

Standing in front of them was the entire Investigation Team minus Teddie, all of them with the same shocked expression on their faces. Yosuke was confused about that for a few seconds until realizing that he was holding hands with Yu with his face the color of a tomato. And the fact that they were even up here most likely meant that either Chie or Yukiko told them about the letter, which meant.. 

Uh oh.

“Aah!! It’s, uh, not what it looks like? I mean it is what it looks like but.. why are you even up here in the first place?” He physically cringed at his stammering and reluctantly let go of the hand he’d been holding. Maybe they’d believed him somehow? Hopefully? He’d finally managed to come to terms with being really gay for his best friend, but he wasn’t anywhere near ready to tell everyone else about it. He glanced over at Yu, who looked as calm and collected as ever. Stupid perfect Yu. And why  _ were _ they up here? He’d never seen them eat lunch in the stairwell before, and Kanji, Rise, and Naoto’s lunch period had just started a few minutes ago? Were they waiting for him? That.. actually made sense. Chie or Yukiko must have told them about the letter. But why did they care so much?

They continued awkwardly staring at each other in silence for a while, the pit in Yosuke’s stomach getting exponentially worse with every passing second, until someone finally spoke.

“So.. Is there somethin’ you wanna tell us?” Asked Kanji.

“Uhhh…” It wasn’t really a matter of  _ wanting _ to tell them because he definitely wasn’t ready for that, but it’s not like he had any other option. They were holding hands up until a minute ago, and judging by how Yosuke felt like he was melting he was still blushing pretty hard. It didn’t take much to figure out that they were dating. (God, he was  _ dating _ Yu. That’s a sentence he never thought he’d say, but that sure as hell wasn’t a bad thing.) He glanced over at his partner yet again to make sure he was fine with telling everyone, and he gave a small nod in return. Okay Yosuke, you can do this. 

“...we're…….dating,” He practically squeaked, but at least it was over with. Well the hard part of it was over with, anyway. He’d expected something along the lines of more awkward silence, a laugh, someone to run away, or at least some sort of negative reaction. What he didn’t expect was for everyone’s faces to light up with what appeared to be happiness (except for Rise, who looked disappointed and sad. Not very surprising considering just how obvious her crush on Yu had been) and for all of them to hand fistfuls of yen to Yukiko.

“Wha- huh?” 

“Oh, we all made bets on who wrote the letter. We all thought she was crazy but she managed to guess right,” Chie started. She had a genuine smile on her face, which wasn’t really what Yosuke was expecting from anyone on the Investigation Team. “I’m actually really happy for two though. At least you’ll stop flirting with the rest of us.” Before Yosuke even had a chance to interject and defend himself, Naoto started speaking.

“Yeah, me too. I really didn’t expect this but I’m glad that you’re both happy.” 

Yukiko and Rise said similar things, though Rise’s were incredibly forced due to who exactly she was congratulating on getting a boyfriend, until the only person left was Kanji. 

“I really wasn’t expectin’ this, but more power to ya.” Kanji gave a smile, a pleasant and genuine smile, as he spoke. 

“Thanks.. sorry I was such an ass to you, by the way. I just didn’t want to accept myself and projected that onto you.” That went way more smoothly than Yosuke had anticipated; no stuttering, no stumbling, no getting kicked in the balls for being an asshole. (yet, at least) 

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal. I see where you’re coming from.”

Yosuke started to reply, but was cut off by the bell signifying the start of class ringing throughout the halls.

“Oh, oops. Guess we should probably go to class then,” started Chie, who quickly ran off along with Yukiko. 

“Our lunch period just started but I’m assuming you two want to be left alone, so I’ll just go anyway,” said Naoto with a smile as she ran down the stairs with the other two. Kanji and Rise quickly followed, leaving Yosuke and Yu alone in the stairwell.

“Well, I guess we should head to class then.” He accepted defeat in their argument over class earlier, but still looked over to Yu expectantly.

“Wait, don’t. Five minutes couldn’t hurt.”

Yu was weird. He was really, really weird. He was so weird that he was sitting in the stairwell of Yasogami High, 20 minutes late to class, his hands around the waist of his new boyfriend, and rambling about the types of cats he’d seen at the Samegawa.

And Yosuke wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
